"René Lussier (born April 15, 1957) is a musician based in Quebec, Canada. He is a composer, guitarist, bass guitarist, percussionist, bass clarinetist, and singer. Lussier has collaborated with such figures as Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Jean Derome and Robert M. Lepage. His work, which combines elements from all major genres, is often referred to within the discourse of New Music, or Musiques Actuelles, in French.

Born in Montreal, Lussier began his musical career in 1973 in Chambly as part of the progressive rock group Arpège. From 1976 to 1980, he was a member of the Montreal folk-progressive group Conventum, led by André Duchesne. Lussier was also a member of the groups Quatour de l'Emmieux and les Reins, Nébu and La G.U.M in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986 he joined Duchesne's Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar.

He began doing soundtrack work in 1979, via a collaboration with Duchesne on the music for a short film called Tanobe. Lussier has written or co-written the scores to more than 35 films, including Chronique d'un génocide annoncé, a documentary by Danièle Lacourse and Yvan Patry about the Rwandan genocide.

Lussier played guitar for the popular singer Pauline Julien between 1982 and 1984, though he also worked on esoteric music that blurred distinctions between progressive rock, jazz, improvisation, modern composition, and circus music. His first solo album, Fin du travail (version I), was released in 1983 and consolidated his reputation as a quirky, humorous and talented guitarist-composer. He has collaborated extensively with Derome and Lepage and has recorded as a member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet. Lussier is featured prominently in Step Across the Border (1990), a documentary feature film by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel about the work and travels of Frith. Lussier was also a member of Frith's band Keep the Dog (1989-1991).

In 1983, Lussier co-founded the Ambiances Magnétiques record label and recording collective with Derome, Lepage and Duchesne, and produced an extensive body of work in this environment. His best known work, Le trésor de la langue (1989), was created during this period. The album interspersed music with taped recordings of Quebec residents discussing the importance of the French language. It won the Grand Prix Paul-Gilson award in 1989.

In the late 1990s, Lussier recorded two albums for solo guitar and a pair of collaborations with Martin Tétreault which reflected an interest in the history of musique concrète and electroacoustic music composition and theory."

"Quebec City, Québec, 1956: Composer, Performer (drum set, percussion, voice)

A percussionist, composer and inveterate inventor, Pierre Tanguay is one of the most sought-after Montréal musicians on the Quebec scene. Since the beginning of the 80s, he has participated in an impressive number of ensembles, including Jean Derome and the dangereux zhoms, Évidence, Castor et compagnie, the Jean-François Groulx Trio, the ODD (a danse orchestra), Villemure Ô Carré, the Pierre Cartier Ensemble and Projet Riel. Among his collaborators are Jean Derome, Normand Guilbeault, Pierre Langevin, René Lussier, Karen Young, Fred Frith, Michel Donato, Daniel Mille, André Duchesne and Antoine Berthiaume. He is very active in the fileds of medieval and traditional music, jazz and musique actuelle. He is the co-founder of Strada, Midi Tapant, Derome/Tanguay.

He has composed works for dance (Lucie Grégoire, Andrew Harwood, Irène Stamou and Francine Gagné), as well as works for the theatre and film (Allan Booth, Imago and Roberto Ariganello). He regularly tours throughout Canada and Europe."

"Vancouver-based guitarist/composer Ron Samworth is a high profile presence on the Canadian scene, equally at home playing in the jazz tradition or the extended sound worlds of new and improvised music. Nominated for the 2002 National Jazz Writers Award "Best Jazz Guitarist", he leads the acclaimed quartet Talking Pictures and co-leads the 15-piece NOW Orchestra. He has appeared at all of the major jazz festivals across Canada, the Jazzfest Berlin, Chicago Jazzfest, New York's Knitting Factory, Vienna's Let's Cool One Chamber Jazz Festival, and at prestigious venues in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He has performed and recorded with many leading international artists including John Zorn, John Medeski, Han Bennink, Marc Ribot, Wayne Horvitz, Butch Morris, Bobby Previte, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, and Canadian jazz legend Claude Ranger. His inter-disciplinary work includes composition, performance and sound design for theatre, spoken word, film, and dance."

"Paul (Horace) Plimley (born 16 March 1953 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a free jazz pianist and vibraphonist. He is one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist Lisle Ellis. He is well versed in classical music and in all styles of jazz; he was one of the first and most convincing interpreters of Ornette Coleman's music on the piano (an instrument usually seen as antithetical to Coleman's music).

Plimley studied classical piano under Kum-Sing Lee at the University of British Columbia (1971-3). In 1978-9 he studied with Karl Berger and Cecil Taylor at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY. In 1977 he founded the New Orchestra Workshop (NOW), and he has been active in many of the ensembles associated with NOW, including the NOW Orchestra.

His work with Lisle Ellis is extensive, and includes the duo CD Both Sides of the Same Mirror (Nine Winds, 1989); When Silence Pulls, with Andrew Cyrille (Music & Arts, 1990); Noir, with Bruce Freedman and Gregg Bendian (Victo, 1992); Density of the Lovestruck Demons with Donald Robinson (Music & Arts, 1994); and Safecrackers with Scott Amendola (Victo, 1999). Most notable, perhaps, are two recordings for Hat Art: the collection of Ornette Coleman interpretations, Kaleidoscopes (1992), and (under Joe McPhee's leadership), a revisiting of Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite called Sweet Freedom, Now What? (1994). In May 2000 he recorded a live act at the 17th International Festival of New Music in Victoriaville, Quebec with John Oswald, Marilyn Crispell and Cecil Taylor. The album was released at Victo Records.

The still Vancouver based musician is a regular at the annual Vancouver International Jazz Festival."

"Cellist, improviser, composer Peggy Lee was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She studied classical cello, completing a bachelors degree in performance at the University of Toronto as a student of Vladimir Orloff and Denis Brott. She furthered her studies on the cello with lessons with Martha Gerschefski in Atlanta Georgia. In the fall of 1988 Peggy began a year residency with a string quartet at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. It was here that she first became interested in collaborating with artists from different mediums and in veering away from the classical path. This led to a decision to move away from the known and thus to her relocating to Vancouver, B.C. where she now makes her home.

Peggy's first forays into improvisation in Vancouver happened with dancers at the EDAM (experimental dance and music) studio at the Western Front and eventually led to her meeting and joining guitarists Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson in their respective bands; as well as becoming a member of the New Orchestra Workshop, which went on to have interesting and fruitful collaborations with Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, René Lussier, Barry Guy and George Lewis.

Peggy continues to collaborate frequently with Ron and Tony and with her husband, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, as well as with many other longtime musical associates including Dave Douglas, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Veda Hille and Lisa Miller. She also leads or co-leads a number of musical projects: The Peggy Lee Band, Film in Music, Waxwing (with Tony Wilson and Jon Bentley) and Beautiful Tool (with Mary Margaret O'Hara).

She has also collaborated extensively in theatre and dance with companies and artists such as Ruby Slippers, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House, David Hudgins, Peter Bingham and Delia Brett.

In 2005, Peggy received the Freddie Stone Award for integrity and innovation in music and in 2010 she was awarded a Jesse Richardson Theatre Award for outstanding composition."

"Dylan van der Schyff was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1970. He now makes his home in Vancouver, Canada, where he lives with his wife, cellist Peggy Lee, and their two children. Van der Schyff attended the schools of music at the University of Victoria and, briefly, McGill University; and he studied military drumming while with the Band of the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa. He received his MA from Simon Fraser University and is currently engaged in graduate research in music psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

As a performer and producer, van der Schyff has appeared on close to 100 recordings spanning the genres of jazz, electro-acoustic, improvised, experimental and new music; he has performed in almost every major centre in Europe and North America including international festivals in Berlin, Lisbon, Stockholm, New York, Chicago, Montreal, Trento (Italy) and Molde (Norway); and he has collaborated in numerous interdisciplinary projects involving theatre, dance and film. A partial list of notable performance and recording collaborators includes: George Lewis, Joelle Léandre, Dave Douglas, Mark Helias, Peggy Lee, Eyvind Kang, Nicole Mitchell, Brad Turner, Tony Wilson, Wayne Horvitz, Marilyn Crispell, Torsten Muller, Robin Holcolmb, Michael Moore, Ellery Eskelin, Sylvie Courvoisier, Rob Mazurek, Talking Pictures, Ken Vandermark, Paul Rutherford, John Butcher, Tobias Delius, Louis Sclavis, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Fred Frith, and Gary Peacock. Van der Schyff has also performed as a sideman with Roswell Rudd, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Misha Mengelberg, Georg Graewe, Oliver Lake, Wadada Leo Smith and the Kenny Werner Sextet with Randy Brecker.

Van der Schyff has served on the music faculty at Capilano University in Vancouver, Canada, since 2009. He also served on faculty at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music between 2002-2005, and at the Vancouver Institute for Creative Music in 2006. Additionally, he has given seminars and workshops at the University of Indiana and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Van der Schyff has appeared on Austrian television and Swedish radio as well as NPR, the CBC and Radio Canada. Articles about his work as an improviser have appeared in publications such as Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Chicago Reader, The Wire, Coda, and MUZIK."