"Born in Newark, NJ, Steve Swell has been an active member of the NYC music community since 1975. He has toured and recorded with many artists from mainstreamers such as Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich to so called outsiders as Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor and William Parker. He has over 40 CDs as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artists on more than 100 other releases. He runs workshops around the world and is a teaching artist in the NYC public school system focusing on special needs children.

Swell has worked on music transcriptions of the Bosavi tribe of New Guinea for MacArthur fellow, Steve Feld in 2000. His CD, "Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers" (CIMP) ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He has also received grants from USArtists International in 2006, MCAF (LMCC) awards in 2008 and 2013 and has been commissioned twice on the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in 2006 and at Roulette in 2012.

Steve was nominated for Trombonist of the Year 2008 & 2011 by the Jazz Journalists Association, was selected Trombonist of the Year 2008-2010 , 2012 and 2014-2015 by the magazine El Intruso of Argentina and received the 2008 Jubilation Foundation Fellowship Award of the Tides Foundation. Steve has also been selected by the Downbeat Critics Poll in the Trombone category each year from 2010-2016.

Steve is presently a teaching artist through the American Composers Orchestra, Healing Arts Initiative , Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center (Bronx), the Jazz Foundation of America and Leman Manhattan Preparatory School.

Steve was also awarded the 2014 Creative Curricula grant (LMCC) for the project: "Metamorphoses: Modern Mythology in Sound and Words" which was taught in a month long residency at Baruch College Campus High School in Manhattan."

"Jason Kao Hwang (composer/violin/viola) recently released the CD Sing House, featuring his quintet, and VOICE, which features several ensembles with poetry. Sing House performances include the Vision Festival and Edgefest (MI). Burning Bridge, his octet of Chinese and Western instruments was one of the top CDs of 2012 in Jazziz and the Jazz Times. Performances include the Festival International de Musique Actuelle (Canada) and Freer Gallery (D.C.). The 2012 Downbeat Critics' Poll voted Mr. Hwang as "Rising Star for Violin." In 2011 he released two critically acclaimed recordings, Symphony of Souls, for improvising orchestra, and Crossroads Unseen, the third CD of his quartet EDGE. His opera, The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown, was one of the top ten recordings of 2005 in Opera News. As violinist, he has worked with Wadada Leo Smith, Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, Steve Swell, Tomeka Reid, and others. Mr. Hwang has received support from Chamber Music America, US Artists International, the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation and others. Mr. Hwang currently teaches sound design at New York University."

"Ariel Bart is a New York-based harmonica player and composer.

She was born in 1998 and plays chromatic harmonica since age 7.

Trained by the best musicians in Israel including Dror Adler, Yaaki Levy, and Yuval Cohen. She studied at the Jerusalem high school for the Arts (jazz music department).

Served in the IDF as an outstanding musician between 2016-2018.

Preformed with the top Israeli artists such as Shlomo Gronich, David D'aor, Miki Gavrilov, Atraf (band) and as a solo performer with the Jerusalem East and West orchestra.

Ariel is a student at The new school university for jazz and contemporary music in New York (graduating in May 2020).

Between 2018-2019 studied with some of the top musicians in NY such as Aaron Parks, Reggie Workman, Jon Cowered, Tony Malaby, and Kirk Nurock.

During 2019 performed and recorded with the musicians William Parker, Steve Swell, and Andrew Cyrille."

"Fred Lonberg-Holm (born 1962) is an American cellist based in Chicago. He relocated from New York City to Chicago in 1995. Lonberg-Holm is most identified with playing free improvisation and free jazz. He is also a composer of concert works. As a session musician and arranger, he is credited on many rock, pop, and country records. Lonberg-Holm currently leads the Valentine Trio, with Jason Roebke (bass) and Frank Rosaly (drums). This jazz trio performs original compositions as well as tunes by both jazz composers (e.g. Sun Ra) and pop songwriters (e.g. Jeff Tweedy, Syd Barrett). The group released its first album Terminal Valentine, in 2007, which was reviewed by AllAboutJazz critic Nils Jacobson.

He coordinates and directs performances of his Lightbox Orchestra, an improvising ensemble with a flexible, ever-changing membership. Lonberg-Holm does not play an instrument in this group, but rather conducts its non-idiomatic improvisations via the "lightbox" and by holding up handwritten signs. The lightbox contains a light bulb for each musician which Lonberg-Holm switches on or off to suggest when they should play. Collective groups of which Lonberg-Holm is a member include Terminal 4 who released an album, in 2003, called When I'm Falling that received four and a half stars, and AMG Album Pick by Allmusic, and it was reviewed by Allmusic's Joslyn Layne, The Boxhead Ensemble, Pillow, the Lonberg-Holm/Kessler/Zerang trio (with Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang), and the Dörner/Lonberg-Holm duo (with Axel Dörner).

Among groups led by other people, he is a member of the Vandermark 5, the Joe McPhee Trio, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens, and Ken Vandermark's Territory Band. When he lived in New York, Lonberg-Holm frequently collaborated with the rock group God Is My Co-Pilot pianist and composer Anthony Coleman as well as multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost. In Chicago, he has worked with Jim O'Rourke, Bobby Conn (on "Llovessonngs" [1999] and "The Golden Age" [2001]), The Flying Luttenbachers, Lake Of Dracula, Wilco, Rivulets, Mats Gustafsson, Sten Sandell, Jaap Blonk, John Butcher, and a great many others.

Lonberg-Holm's concert works have been premiered by William Winant, Carrie Biolo, the Austin New Music Co-Op, Subtropics Ensemble, Duo Atypica, the Schanzer/Speach Duo, New Winds, Paul Hoskin, Kevin Norton, the E.S.P. Ensemble, and others. His scores for dance have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Dance Theater Workshop as well as many other venues. He is a former composition student of Anthony Braxton and Morton Feldman. He performed improvised music in the role of a troubled composer who finds inspiration in the love of a couple he spots on the street in a short film for the Playboy channel."

"Robert Boston is a pianist who regularly performs free jazz, contemporary classical, rock and electronic music. As a composer, Boston endeavors to fuse his eclectic experience, finding form within mechanical noise and functionality of harmony/melody for each specific dance piece or instrumentation. He has scored dances by Korhan Basaran, Diane Coburn Bruning, Giada Ferrone, Loni Landon, Lone Larsen, Jodi Melnick, Pietro Pireddu, Caitlin Trainor, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Boston has appeared on NPR's Front Row and at the Prospect Park Bandshell, the Joyce Theater, 92Y Tribeca, The Knitting Factory, The Stone, Rockwood Music Hall and Pianos, among others. Formerly Principal Pianist for the Mark Morris Dance Group, he is currently Music Director at Barnard College Department of Dance."

"Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others.

Cyrille was born on November 10, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York into a Haitian family. He began studying science at St. John's University, but was already playing jazz in the evenings and switched his studies to the Juilliard School. His first drum teachers were fellow Brooklyn-based drummers Willie Jones and Lenny McBrowne; through them, Cyrille met Max Roach. Nonetheless, Cyrille became a disciple of Philly Joe Jones, who in some performances such as Time Waits used Cyrille's drum kit.

His first professional engagement was as an accompanist of singer Nellie Lutcher, and he had an early recording session with Coleman Hawkins. Trumpeter Ted Curson introduced him to pianist Cecil Taylor when Cyrille was 18.

He joined the Cecil Taylor unit in 1964, and stayed for about 10 years, eventually performing drum duos with Milford Graves. In addition to recording as a bandleader, he has recorded and/or performed with musicians such as David Murray, Irène Schweizer, Marilyn Crispell, Carla Bley, Butch Morris and Reggie Workman among others. Cyrille is currently a member of the group, Trio 3, with Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman."