"Initially a radio character, drummer, and composer, Michel F. Côté became a member of the collective Ambiances Magnétiques in 1988. Since that time, his activities have got encompassed free of charge improvisation along with his groupings Bruire and Klaxon Gueule, sound-art collaborations with Diane Labrosse and Christof Migone, and composing for dance, movie theater, and film. Côté was raised with rock and roll, admiring drummers like Led Zeppelin's powerhouse John Bonham and Yes/Ruler Crimson's man-of-finesse Costs Bruford. But he initial got into the music globe through radio, starting to transmit programs of innovative music in the first '80s at Montreal's community place, CIBL. In 1985, he begun to are a researcher and web host for "Chants Magnétiques" and afterwards "Musique Actuelle" at Radio-Canada, Canada's nationwide francophone radio. A music buff, he sucked in a huge selection of noises and affects, developing his drumming abilities but most of all his studio appearance. In 1988, Côté became the 8th person in Ambiances Magnétiques and documented his first recording beneath the name Bruire. An clothing of unpredictable geometry centered across the drummer, Bruire reinvented itself with each recording. Côté's evolution like a musician could be witnessed through the deconstructed pop tracks of Le Barman A Tort de Sourire (1989) towards the sensitive miniatures of Les Fleurs de Léo (1992) as well as the abstract improvised compositions on L'Âme de l'Objet (1995), a focus on in his discography. In the meantime, Côté started to create incidental music for theatre, dance, and film. This facet of his function quickly became probably the most time-consuming and commercially, aswell as artistically, practical, though it intended employed in the shadows. Since 1995 he is a regular collaborator of playwright/filmmaker Robert Lepage, composing and carrying out the music for the play Les Sept Branches de la Rivière Ota, carrying out in the theatrical cabaret Zulu Period, and composing as well as Bernard Falaise the music of his film Nô. The drummer also caused the dance troupe Carbone 14, and playwrights Wajdi Mouawad and Brigitte Haentjens. The single recording Compil Zouave culls excerpts from these different ratings. In the past due '90s, Côté created a pastime in live consumer electronics and shifted his music toward freer and more-textural pastures. A cooperation with sound designer and Avatar member Christof Migone (Vex, 1998) activated an exploration of the electro-acoustic improvisation that created in Austria and Germany at the same. This fresh vision is recorded on Muets, the next recording by his trio Klaxon Gueule (with Falaise and Alexandre St-Onge)."

"Lori Freedman. Born Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1958. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (clarinet, bass clarinet)

Qualified as "a musical revolutionary in the front ranks of the avant-garde" by Alex Varty of the Georgia Straight (Vancouver), Lori Freedman (clarinets) is internationally recognized as one of the most creative and provocative performers. She is a member of a select group known as "renaissance musicians" as her artistic activities cover many fields: performer of written music (well over one hundred works have been written for or premiered by her), composer, improviser, teacher, and on occasion, writer. While managing a full performance schedule of more than 75 public appearances a year, Freedman has been receiving commissions to write music for ensembles such as Orkestra Futura, Arraymusic Ensemble, Ensemble Transmission, Continuum Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble SuperMusique, Ensemble Paramirabo, Upstream Orchestra, Queen Mab Trio, Crowbar Trio, Lott Dance, Oberlander Films, Foresite Theatre, Cooke Productions and Autumn Leaf Productions. Her current discography comprises over 59 recordings, the most recent of which include Greffes (Empreintes digitales), On No (Mode Records), Bridge (Collection QB), Plumb (Barnyard Records), 3 and À un moment donné (Ambiances Magnétiques), Huskless! (Artifact), See Saw and Thin Air (Wig). Highlight collaborations include work with Rohan de Saram, Barre Phillips, Helmut Lachenmann, Frances-Marie Uitti, Monique Jean, Joëlle Léandre, Axel Dörner, George Lewis, the Jack Quartet and Richard Barrett."

"Composer, improviser, instrumentalist (clarinet & saxophone) and sound artist, Philippe Lauzier participates in several projects that tour regularly in Canada and Europe, but also in USA, Latine America and Australia. In his solo and collective work, his ideas incorporate influences of contemporary musical languages as well as sounds from non-Western sources. Creative extended techniques, complex drones from which polyphonies emerge, and a certain compositional rigour are typical of his style. His interest for collaborative intermedia practices also leads him to create sound installation pieces, live performances for contemporary dance, theater music and many sound designs for visual art projects. Philippe lives in Montreal, Quebec."

"Ellwood Epps was born in Toronto and grew up in nearby Mississauga. His father and grandfather played trumpet in the past, and when he began band classes in junior high school at age 11, the trumpet was chosen for him, despite having put down alto, tenor, and baritone saxophone as his three instrument choices. He attended an intensive arts highschool called Cawthra Park, where his first trumpet teachers were Mary Ann Fratia and Jim Lewis. At Cawthra he began improvising, composing, and falling in love with jazz music. During this time he played trumpet, bass clarinet, clarinet, flute, piano, and baritone saxophone, and also studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

He spent a brief period of time studying jazz at the University of Toronto and York University. He took private lessons from David Mott, meditated, wrote poetry, and travelled to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder Colorado, attending the classes of Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman and Reed Bye. Back in Toronto, he copublished a poetry journal and hosted a reading series called Poetry On The Roof at the Parliament Street loft where he lived. He also travelled to Bennington Vermont to study with Bill Dixon.

During the late 90's, Epps hosted Full Circle, a weekly jazz program on CIUT FM which featured in-studio performances, and organized the AS IS concert series at the Oasis on College Street. Some of Epps' first performances as an improviser were with the Woodchoppers Association, a large orchestra co-led by drummer Dave Clark and multi-inistrumentalist Lewis Melville. He joined the David Mott Quintet, which recorded two very under-recognized albums, and had a week-long performance residency at the Vancouver Jazz Festival.

In 2004 and 2005 Epps attended the Banff Jazz and Creative Music Workshop and the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, where he learned from George Lewis, Dave Douglas, Han Bennink, Mark Dresser, and Bill Frisell, and met Montreal musicians Pierre-Yves Martel and Philippe Lauzier. In 2004 he was invited to perform with Steve Lacy and an 8-piece ensemble in Montreal in a concert recorded and broadcast on French CBC Radio. Sadly Lacy passed a few months later, and the band never got to perform again. The experience made an impression, and Epps moved to Montreal in 2005, where he has worked regularly with the Montreal members of that band: Nicolas Caloia, John Heward, Lori Freedman, Jean Derome, and Rainer Wiens. That band also included American saxophonist Joe Giardullo; Epps played on Joe's 'Red Morocco', which was released on the French Rogue Art label.

In Montreal, Epps also began working with players of his own generation including Martel, Lauzier, Josh Zubot, and Isaiah Ceccarelli. Epps was an original member of Martel's Quartetski, and appears on its debut recording, ''Quartetski does Prokofiev''. In 2007 he formed Pink Saliva with Michel F Côté and Alexandre St-Onge. The band has released 6 recordings, and won the François Marcaurelle prize at the Off Jazz Festival in 2012. He is also a longstanding member of Nicolas Caloia's Ratchet Orchestra, and has performed with John Heward's Murray Street Band, Land of Marigold (a duet with Josh Zubot), as a duet with saxophonist Yves Charuest, and in many groups with Jean Derome. Currently his principal activity is the band Togetherness!, a quintet which plays music from South Africa and beyond.

Epps has performed in ad-hoc ensembles with Montreal improvers of all ages and backgrounds including Scott Thomson, Martin Tétreault, Émilie Girard-Charest, Malcolm Goldstein, Raphael Foisy-Couture, Ivan Bamford, Stéphan Diamantakiou, and Bernard Falaise. Since coming to Montreal he has also performed with many American and European musicians including William Parker, Bill Dixon, John Butcher, Matana Roberts, Henry Grimes, Axel Dörner, Marshall Allen, Xavier Charles, Wilbert DeJoode, Butch Morris, and Nate Wooley. He has completed two coast-to-coast Canadian tours, first playing solo concerts, and then with violinist Josh Zubot. He has performed often at the Guelph Jazz Festival, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), FONTMusic Canada, and l'Off Festival de Jazz de Montréal, and has appeared in New York at the Stone, CBGB's, the Jazz Gallery, and the FONT Festival.

In 2008 Epps and fellow trumpeter Philippe Battikha co-founded l'Envers, a loft venue in the Mile End that was a welcoming home for creative music, film, dance and more, and hosted over 400 concerts during its four years in business. In the same year he was one of four musicians who started the stilll-active Mardi Spaghetti series, just down the street at Le Cagibi café. In 2014 Epps and Aaron Shragge started the annual Festival of New Trumpet Music Canada, modelled after the FONT Festival in New York. FONTMusic Canada has presented great trumpet artists including Nicole Rampersaud, Lina Allemano, Amy Horvey, Ingrid Jensen, and Nate Wooley.

While living at l'Envers, Epps and Lévy Bourbonnais started a series of improvised music workshops called the Studio d'Improvisation de Montréal. SIM continues to operate, with nearly 200 students over the years, and has included workshops by guest teachers such as Henry Grimes, Lori Freedman, Joe Morris, and Tatsuya Nakatani. He has given workshops across Canada: in Vancouver (through the NOW Orchestra Society), as artist-in-residence at the 2015 Something Else! Festival in Hamilton, in Calgary, Kitchener, and at Carlton University in Ottawa. Epps has been teaching private trumpet lessons since his teenage years, following in the footsteps of master teacher Laurie Frink, with whom studied in New York over a 10-year period.

Ellwood has recorded on over 60 records for diverse labels including Ambiances Magnetiques, &Records, and Constellation (Montreal), VICTO, Rogue Art (France), Majmua (Philadelphia), Kakutopia (UK), Panospria and Drip Audio (Vancouver), Barnyard (Toronto), and Bug Incision (Calgary)."

"Joshua Zubot is a musician who spent his younger years honing his skills in the West. Gaining ground internationally, Josh toured with the former Barrage group from 1997-2002.

Moving to Montreal in 2003, Josh finished his BFA in Electroacoustic Studies after 4 years. In 2005, he produced his first solo album, Crouched Head, on the Drip Audio Label.

He now freelances full-time as a violinist. Mainly, Josh is a performer/composer fusing many means of styles through his violin. These styles range from somewhere in the middle of jazz, free jazz, avant garde, contemporary classical, folk, improvisational, rock and electronic.

Since then he has developped through the avant-garde scene in Montreal producing his own albums: Subtle Lip Can, Mendham, and Land of Marigold.

Over the last decade, Josh has played with numerous different groups and individuals. Some collaborations were with Chad VanGaalen, Lori Freedman, Patrick Watson, William Parker, Pierre-Yves Martel, Michael Blake, Bernard Falaise, Rainer Wiens, Michel F Coté, Sam Shalabi, Miles Perkin, Myra Melford, Marshall Allen, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, Jean Derome, Malcom Goldstein, Pierre Tanguay, Martha Wainwright, John Butcher, to name a few.

Josh performed in the Mozg Festival (Poland),International Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Guelph Jazz Festival, X Avant New Music Festival L'Off Festival de Jazz de Montreal, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Sound Travels (Sound Art Festival in Toronto), Guelph Jazz Festival, Osheaga, Pop Montreal, NXNE, as well as numerous festival circuits in Europe."

"Performing on both the viola and the viola d'amore, Jennifer Thiessen cultivates a particular interest in classical and contemporary chamber music, new composed and improvised music, and historically informed performance practice. She is expanding the contemporary repertoire of both the viola and the viola d'amore through the creation of new compositions, and through songwriting and improvisation.

Jennifer recently commissioned and performed an entire programme of new works for solo viola d'amore by composers in Montreal and Ottawa, and a new piece by Matthias Maute for viola d'amore and pedal harpsichord. These works were presented by the Ottawa New Music Creators and Innovations en Concert in 2015. She has worked on new music with many composers and improvisers, notably: Gavin Bryars, Matthias Maute, Christopher Butterfield, Cassandra Miller, Michael Matthews, Steven Gellman, Rainer Wiens, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Pierre-Yves Martel, Megan Jerome, Mike Essoudry, Jan Jarvlepp, Jen McLaughlan, Leo Lightstone, Ida Toninato, Michel F. Côté, Michel Lambert, Giorgio Magnanensi, Nicole Lizée, Scott Godin, Alexandra Fol, Brian Harman, Matthew Ricketts, Géraldine Eguiluz and Jerry Semshychyn. From 2007 to 2012, Jennifer toured the world with the dance company La La La Human Steps, performing new chamber music by Gavin Bryars and David Lang in the productions Amjad and New Work.

As a freelance musician, Jennifer has recently performed and recorded with such ensembles as Ensemble Caprice (Matthias Maute), Collectif 9, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal,Quatuor Bozzini, La Bande Montréal Baroque (Sigiswald Kuijken) and Ensemble Per Sonare. She has previously performed chamber music with Quatuor Franz-Joseph, Mireille Lagacé, Les Boréades (Francis Colprin), Ensemble Allogène, and Trio '86, and has joined such ensembles as La Machine, Clavecin en Concert (Luc Beauséjour), Ensemble Appassionata, Les Violons du Roy, l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Charlottetown Festival Orchestra, l'Orchestre des grands ballets canadiens de Montréal and l'Orchestre symphonique de Laval. She has performed with Sarah Slean, Martha Wainwright and Leif Vollebeck, is featured on Joe Silva's soundtrack to the film Black Field, and can be heard on recordings by Michel F. Côté, Michel Lambert, Mike O'Brien, John Carroll, Courtney Wing, Antoine Berthiaume, and The Record of the Week Club.

Originally from rural Manitoba, Jennifer studied violin with Elizabeth Lupton Ens in Winnipeg while obtaining a Bachelor of Theology. She completed a Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance with David Stewart at the University of Manitoba and the University of Ottawa, followed by a Master of Viola Performance from l'Université de Montréal with Jutta Puchammer-Sédillot.

Jennifer also writes, sings and plays guitar for her pop music project Daily Alice, whose debut recording was released in December, 2014."

"Pierre-Yves Martel. Born Vanier, Ontario, Canada, 1979. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (viola da gamba, double bass, objects)

Following a unique artistic path, Pierre-Yves Martel is constantly renewing his musical identity and practice. Though a instrumentalist, he identifies himself first and foremost as a sound artist whose work oscillates between perpetual research and experimentation. It is in this spirit that he has revisited the viola da gamba, utilizing this traditional instrument in new contexts and thus reengaging it with the contemporary world. Having created an authentic musical language through non-conventional techniques and instrumental preparations, he also works outside of instrumental music altogether, using a variety of objects rife with new sonic possibilities, from contact-mics and speakers to motors, wheels, surfaces and textures."

"Alexandre St-Onge. Born Montréal, Québec, 1976. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (double bass).

Alexandre St-Onge is an audio artist, a musician/improviser (acoustic bass, bass, voice and electronics) and a sound performer. He has studied literature and philosophy and he is currently doing his PhD in art. He is fascinated by creativity as a pragmatic approach of the ineffable and he has released seven solo CDs: Entités (Oral), Joseph Carey Merrick (Oral), Mon animal est possible (Alien8 Recordings), L'amitié ou les rumeurs insoutenables du désir (Squint Fucker Press), kasi naigo (Squint Fucker Press), Une mâchoire et deux trous (Namskéio Records), Image/négation (Alien8 Recordings). He also plays in quite a few bands, including Et Sans, K.A.N.T.N.A.G.A.N.O., Klaxon Gueule, Pink Saliva, Mineminemine, Shalabi Effect and Undo. As a composer he has worked for interactive/mixed-media company kondition pluriel, as well as composing for artists such as Marie Brassard, Karine Denault, Lynda Gaudreau, Line Nault, Jérémie Niel, Maryse Poulin and Mariko Tanabe."

"Bernard Falaise. Born Montréal, Québec, 1965. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (guitar).

Bernard Falaise was born in Montréal, where he currently lives. He plays electric guitar, composes and improvises - all with evident joy - for Miriodor, Klaxon Gueule, les Projectionnistes, Diesel and other groups. He has written for the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM), Quartango and the Isis Quartet, and has created music for exhibitions, television, the theatre and dance. Allergic to labels, Falaise explores acid rock, twelve-tone waltzes and industrial tangos with equal enthusiasm."