"Though the point of reference for many remains the iconic band Henry Cow, which he co-founded in 1968 and which broke up more than 30 years ago, Fred Frith has never really stood still for an instant.

In bands such as Art Bears, Massacre, Skeleton Crew, Keep the Dog, Tense Serenity, the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Eye to Ear, and most recently Cosa Brava, he has always held true to his roots in rock and folk music, while exploring influences that range from the literary works of Eduardo Galeano to the art installations of Cornelia Parker.

The release of the seminal Guitar Solos in 1974 enabled him to simultaneously carve out a place for himself in the international improvised music scene, not only as an acclaimed solo performer but in the company of artists as diverse as Han Bennink, Chris Cutler, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Evelyn Glennie, Ikue Mori, Louis Sclavis, Stevie Wishart, Wu Fei, Camel Zekri, John Zorn, and scores of others.

He has also developed a personal compositional language in works written for Arditti Quartet, Asko Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Modern, Concerto Köln, and ROVA Sax Quartet, for example. Fred has been active as a composer for dance since the early 1980s, working with choreographers Bebe Miller, François Verret, and especially long-time collaborator and friend Amanda Miller, with whom he has created a compelling body of work over the last twenty years.

His film soundtracks (for award-winning films like Thomas Riedelsheimer's Rivers and Tides and Touch the Sound, Peter Mettler's Gambling, Gods, and LSD, and Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow's Thirst, to name a few) won him a lifetime achievement award from Prague's "Music on Film, Film on Music" Festival (MOFFOM) in 2007. The following year he received Italy's Demetrio Stratos Prize (previously given to Diamanda Galas and Meredith Monk) for his life's work in experimental music, and in 2010 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in his home county of Yorkshire.

Fred currently teaches in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California (renowned for over fifty years as the epicenter of the American experimental tradition), and in the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland."

"Drummer/percussionist Karen Stackpole started out as a rock drummer in the late '80s and became fascinated with improvised music and multi-media collaboration. She joined forces with SF Bay Area musicians, playing new music and stretching beyond established boundaries as well as working with dancers and experimental film. In 1991 she was exposed to the wonder of gongs (Paiste in particular) and immediately altered her trajectory to incorporate these incredibly versatile instruments into her musical vocabulary.

In her explorations of metals, she has cultivated some distinctive techniques for drawing harmonics out of tam tams with various implements: rubber mallets, felt and yarn mallets, ball chains, bass and cello bows, kitchen utensils, and other small objects. Karen specializes in dynamic soundscapes and textures, but has also contributed gong sounds to more conventional musical genres as well as contributing source material for film soundtracks.

She is active in the creative music scene and has participated in music festivals and performed solo in Seattle, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, and the Bay Area as well as collaborating with other gongists from the UK, Poland, and the US. Over the years she has played with Gino Robair, John Schott, Vinny Golia, Myles Boisen, Moe Staiano, Chris Heenan, Rod Poole, Steve Roden, Dean Santomieri, Le Quan Ninh, The Bay Area Chamber Symphony, Mark Growden, Malcolm Mooney, and others. In addition to solo work, she performs and records with various projects including Machine Shop: Live Amplified Gong Experience (a duo with electronics master, Drew Webster), Sabbaticus Rex, Ghost in the House, the improvising quartet Vorticella, the Francis Wong Unit, and the rock band Steel Hotcakes."