A central figure in Vancouver's creative-music scene, Coat Cooke is a saxophonist, composer, and longtime director of the NOW Orchestra, known for bold large-ensemble improvisation and genre-crossing collaborations. His playing spans fiery free-jazz expression, sound-based exploration, and open-form composition.

Vancouver-based jazz vocalist known for pairing strong interpretive instincts with a fearless experimental streak. Her work spans standards, poetry-driven projects, and deep improvisation with ensembles like the NOW Orchestra.

A saxophonist based in Vancouver, Freedman has been a central figure in the local improvisation and free-jazz community for decades. He leads his own projects (including trio recordings such as Collage) and combines his saxophone practice with visual-art collage work, embodying a multidisciplinary creative ethos.

British-born, Vancouver-based saxophonist and multi-woodwind player, Graham Ord has contributed to jazz, folk, and experimental settings, including the NOW Orchestra. His sound ranges from lyrical warmth to robust free-form energy.

Alto saxophonist and clarinetist recognized in the Vancouver jazz scene for both straight-ahead and inventive modern playing, Berson brings melodic clarity into freer environments including large-group improvisation.

Trumpeter and composer leading Vancouver's Hard Rubber Orchestra, Korsrud blends jazz, classical, funk, and avant-garde influences into vibrant large-ensemble works. Also a frequent collaborator in improvising orchestras across Canada.

"Vancouver trumpet player and composer Kevin Elaschuk has different musical groups he leads including the group ESQ, the Elaschuk/Ryga Quartet and the Kevin Elaschuk Quartet with Ross Taggart and also the Kevin Elaschuk Trio. Kevin also plays in the Tony Wilson Sextet, Peggy Lee's Film and Music and the group Soft Morning City. Kevin Elaschuk has some great recordings out and some of my favorites include Breakfast in Kamloops and Casual Coordinates with Kevin's group ESQ and Any Answers with the Elaschuk /Ryga Quartet. He also plays on Tony Wilson's Sextet albums The Lowest Note and The People Look Like Flowers at Last. Kevin has been an important part of the Vancouver music scene for many years and has also teaches jazz trumpet at Capilano University."

Vancouver-based trombonist active in creative jazz and improvisation, Murray's strong low-brass foundation supports exploratory ensembles such as the NOW Orchestra and other West Coast projects.

Based in Vancouver, Canada, Muirhead is a bass-trombonist, tuba/sousaphone player, composer and improviser active since the early 1980s. He has worked across genres from symphonic and jazz large ensembles (NOW Orchestra / Orkestra Futura, Hard Rubber Orchestra) to more intimate creative settings, and is known for his powerful tone and inventive improvising.

"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 Blaney is an acoustic and electric bassist and composer. Blaney is active in the Vancouver music scene, playing both mainstream and avant-garde jazz styles and with his own trio, Garbo's Hat. He is also known for the groups Awakening, Brahman, NOW Orchestra, Paul Plimley Octet, The Tony Wilson Sextet, This Trio.

Clyde Reed is a double bassist deeply involved in West Coast free-improv and jazz, notably as part of Vancouver's NOW Orchestra and other large-ensemble creative projects. His steady, grounded approach anchors even the most adventurous ensemble situations.

"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."

A central figure in Vancouver's creative-music scene, Coat Cooke is a saxophonist, composer, and longtime director of the NOW Orchestra, known for bold large-ensemble improvisation and genre-crossing collaborations. His playing spans fiery free-jazz expression, sound-based exploration, and open-form composition.

"Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. In 2014 she led a three-week music residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and in 2016 led a one-week residency at the Conservatory Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years."