"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 and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink was born in Zaandam near Amsterdam in 1942. His first percussion instrument was a kitchen chair. Later his father, an orchestra percussionist, supplied him with a more conventional outfit, but Han never lost his taste for coaxing sounds from unlikely objects he finds backstage at concerts. He is still very fond of playing chairs.

In Holland in the 1960s, Bennink was quickly recognized as an uncommonly versatile drummer. As a hard swinger in the tradition of his hero Kenny Clarke, he accompanied touring American jazz stars, including Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon. He is heard with Gordon on the 1969 album "Live at Amsterdam Paradiso" (on the Affinity label) and with Dolphy on 1964s "Last Date" (PolyGram). At the same time, Bennink participated in the creation of a European improvised music which began to evolve a new identity, apart from its jazz roots. With fellow Dutch pioneers, pianist Misha Mengelberg and saxophonist Willem Breuker, he founded the musicians collective Instant Composers Pool in 1967. Bennink anchored various bands led by Mengelberg or Breuker, and appeared in their comic music-theater productions.

Bennink attended art school in the 1960s, and is also a successful visual artist in several media, often constructing sculpture from found objects, which may include broken drum heads and sticks. He has designed the covers for many LPs and CDs on which he appears. Bennink is represented by Amsterdam's Galerie Espace, and has been the subject of several one-man shows, including one at the Gemeente Museum in the Hague in 1995.

In 1966, Bennink played the US's Newport Jazz Festival with the Mengelberg quartet. From the late 1960s through the '70s Bennink collaborated frequently with Danish, German, English and Belgian musicians, notably saxophonists John Tchicai and Peter Broetzmann, guitarist Derek Bailey and pianist Fred van Hove. Bennink, Broetzmann and van Hove had a longstanding trio well documented on FMP Records. There Bennink also showcased his talents on clarinet, trombone, soprano saxophone and many other instruments, also featured in a series of solo albums he began in 1971.

Bennink's many recordings from the 1980s include sessions with Mengelberg's ICP Orchestra (where he remains), South African bassist Harry Miller, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonists Roswell Rudd and George Lewis, and big-bandleaders Sean Bergin and Andy Sheppard.

From 1988 to'98 Bennink's main vehicle was Clusone 3, with saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Moore and cellist Ernst Reijseger, a band noted for its free-wheeling mix of swinging jazz standards, wide-open improvising, and tender ballads. Clusone played Europe and North America, West Africa, China, Vietnam and Australia, and recorded five CDs for Gramavision, hat Art and Ramboy.

Nowadays he is frequently heard with tenor saxophonist Tobias Delius's quartet and in a trio with pianist/keyboardist Cor Fuhler and bassist Wilbert de Joode, and he still collaborates occasionally with jazz luminaries such as Johnny Griffin, Von Freeman and Ray Anderson.

A conspicuous feature of Bennink's musical life since the 1960s is the spontaneous duo concert with musicians of many nationalities and musical inclinations; in the '90s he recorded in duo with among others pianists Mengelberg, Irene Schweizer and Myra Melford, guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, trumpeter Dave Douglas and tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin.

Since 2008 Han Bennink has his own Han Bennink Trio consisting of Han Bennink, Joachim Badenhorst on clarinet and Simon Toldam on piano."

"Chris Cutler started messing about with banjo, guitar and trumpet at school, settling for drums and playing shadows and other instrumental covers in his first band in 1963. Subsequently he played in R'n'B and Soul Bands, winding up in 1967 playing in London's psychedelic clubs. At the start of the seventies, with Dave Stewart, he co-founded The Ottawa Music Co, a 22 piece Rock composer's orchestra, eventually joining British experimental group Henry Cow with whom he toured, recorded and worked in dance and theatre projects until it's demise in 1978. In 1977 Henry Cow, The Mike Westbrook Orchestra and Frankie Armstrong formed a big-band and toured around Europe. After Henry Cow, Cutler went on to co-found a series of mixed national groups Art Bears, News from Babel, Cassiber, The (ec) Nudes, P53 and The Science Group. He was a permanent member of American bands Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds and now works sporadically with John Rose, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Iancu Dumitrescu, Peter Blegvad and Stevan Tickmayer.

Other lasting collaborations have included Aqsak Maboul (Belgium), Lussier/Derome and Les Quatre Guitaristes (Canada), The Kalahari Surfers (Africa), Perfect Trouble (Germany), Between (Sweden), N.O.R.M.A., (Italy), Telectu (Portugal), Mieku Shimuzu (Japan),The Hyperion Ensemble (Romania), The Film Music Orchestra, 'Oh Moscow', Gong, The Work and Towering Inferno (UK), The Residents (USA), and stateless Tense Serenity and Mirror Man. There have also been countless improvisational groupings and solo performances. Recent projects include Radio pieces with Lutz Glandien and Shelly Hirsch, Live Soundtrack for Carl Dreher's Vampyr (with Italians Musci and Venosta), his Timescales project and work with David Thomas and Linda Thompson.

He also founded and runs the independent label and distribution service ReR/Recommended and, until 1991, the East European specialist label Points East. He is editor of the New Music magazine Unfiled and author of the theoretical book File Under Popular as well as of numerous articles and papers published in 14 languages. He lectures intermittently on theoretical and music related topics. He has appeared on more than 100 recordings."

"Trumpet player Lesli Dalaba, a New York resident since 1978, was a member of Wayne Horvitz's, Elliott Sharp's and La Monte Young's ensembles. Despite keeping a low profile, throughout the 1980s she contributed to renovate the vocabulary of the instrument with a style that made the cerebral sound lyrical. Her first album, Trumpet Songs and Dances (march 1979 - Parachute, 1979), collected solos (Tanz Pesen, Barrytown) and duets (Two Up with Wayne Horvitz).

Relocating to Seattle in 1989, she joined Jeff Greinke's Land and in 1996 formed Radio Chongching.

Her recordings were rare and subdued. Dalaba Frith Glick-Rieman Kihlstedt (Accretions, 2003) was a collaboration with guitarist Fred Frith, pianist Eric Glick Rieman and violinist Carla Kihlstedt. The 13-minute Worm Anvils features some of Dalaba's most sophisticated counterpoint to the most fragile scaffolding as guitar, violin and piano conspire to weave ghostly drones and dissonances. After about eight minute, the 12-minute Shallow Weather creates enough structure from chaos to sound like a funereal fanfare. At the synergetic peak of their jam the four personalities are well defined, as Dalaba's sustained tones collide against Frith's dadaistic noises, Glick-Rieman's anemic notes and Kihlstedt's demented whistles in the 16-minute Ant Farm Morning.

Core Samples (Dossier, 1992) was the first major collection of her own compositions, mainly two multi-movement suites: Core Sample (1989), with two movements performed by the 10-piece Zlatne Ustne brass band (two alto saxophones, three baritone saxophones, a tuba, three Eastern European "truba" wooden trumpets and percussion), two duets with trumpeter Herb Robertson, two duets with guitarist Elliott Sharp and vocalist Sussan Deihim; and Violin Sentiment (1989), with Sharp, violinist Jim Katzin and a drummer.

Zahir (Endless, 2002) was a trio with Bill Horist on guitar and Randall Dunn on sax and keyboards, and the album collects material recorded in 1999.

Timelines (Tzadik, 2004), featuring Zeena Parkins on harp, Amy Denio on vocals, Ikue Mori on keyboards, Carla Kihlstedt on violin, was another suite, but this time also a full-blown concept album dedicated to the history of the world. The quintet of veteran female players crafts abstract instrumental interplays that challenge the dogmas of both jazz jamming and classical chamber music. The spirited performance reinvents music as both a cathartic experience and a social experience.

Lung Tree (january 2004 - ReR, 2005) is a set of nine compositions/improvisations with Eric-Glick Rieman on prepared piano, Lesli Dalaba on trumpet and Stuart Dempster on trombone. The music is puntillistic but not overtly abstract. Emotions surface from the shy, sparse, subdued interchange of the trio. The pieces are a display of slow-motion and subliminal elegance. Most of them are sleepy elegies caught in the interplay between trumpet and trombone, such as the delicate droning and wailing of The Dock-Red Ice and Walking Ruminations, and especially Bed Shadows into Sleep, each of them littered with metallic piano noises. This paradigm culminates in the light trumpet and trombone drones of Morning Light Through the Smokestacks, the most abstract and otherworldly track, although towards the end the trumpet begins to "sing" a real song. A flickering melody is also drowned in the jelly of overtones of Waking by the Refinery. Two of the pieces are significantly different in spirit. Timbral Shift 10/ Coward's Line/Lobby Bar unfolds a series of non-musical dissonant staccato notes. The frantic piano metamorphoses of Dissolution and Redemption Animals (besides being infinitely more energetic than the rest) produces an angular melody out of what initially appears to be a mathematical game. Talking into the Wind closes the album in a somewhat desolate and depressed tone."

"Jean Derome. Born Montréal, Québec, 1955. esidence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (saxophones (alto, baritone, soprano), flutes (flute, bass flute, piccolo, alto flute, recorders), keyboards, small wind instruments (ocarinas, jew's harp, game calls, toys...), percussion, invented instruments, voice)

One of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome has managed to earn the recognition of a larger public, a rare feat in that field. Thanks to his large-scale musique actuelle projects, his compositions, his work as an improviser, his jazz groups and his music for the screen and the stage, Derome ranks as a major creative force, in Québec and abroad. He is experienced and innovative on both saxophone and flute, and his unique writing style cannot be mistaken for anyone else's. Sensitive and powerful, his music often features a funny strike that makes its complex nature more inviting.

Ever since Nébu (one of Québec's first avant-garde jazz groups) in the early '70s, Derome has been consistently renewing and diversifying his approach of composition. He impressed audience and critics first with the flute, then with the saxophone, as a lead character in the musique actuelle underground. He took part to the various artists' collectives looking for new ways to express themselves freely, without esthetic or social constraints, including the Ensemble de musique improvisée de Montréal. Later, in the early '80s, he co-founded Ambiances Magnétiques, a collective and record label that raised his profile at home and introduced his name to the outside world. Among his numerous projects, let us mention the duos Les Granules, Nous perçons les oreilles and Plinc! Plonc!, the dynamic group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms, and the large-scale projects Confitures de gagaku, Je me souviens - Hommage à Georges Perec and Canot-camping. Most of these projects are based on a unique form of synergy between composition, structured improvisation and genuine creative madness, all this articulated with unmatched playfulness. In 1992, Derome became the second artist to be presented with the Freddie Stone Award (bassist Lisle Ellis was the first).

Besides improvising on a regular basis with Ambiances Magnétiques' members and appearing in their projects, Derome has also shared the stage with several musicians of international stature, among others Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer, Louis Sclavis and Han Bennink. He performs regularly all over Canada, in the US and in Europe. He received a Prix Opus in 2001 for his exposure abroad.

Lately, jazz circles have been praising his undisputable qualities as a jazzman, thanks to the Thelonious Monk tribute project Évidence, the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble (whose Mingus Erectus CD is devoted to Charles Mingus' music), and the much-lauded Derome Guilbeault Tanguay Trio.

Although Jean Derome writes tirelessly for his own projects, he is much in demand in the fields of film, theatre and dance. A short list of this side of his work would have to include his numerous scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), especially for films by John Walker, Jacques Leduc, Fernand Bélanger and animated films by Pierre Hébert, Michèle Cournoyer and Jean Detheux; his incidental music for Théâtre UBU, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; not forgetting his work with several top choreographers, including Louise Bédard, Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Daniel Soulières and Ginette Laurin. Other music ensembles have commissioned works from him, including Tuyo, Bradyworks, the Hard Rubber Orchestra from Vancouver and Fanfare Pourpour. Incidentally, Derome is the musical director of the latter.

Over thirty years of music and 70 record credits later, Jean Derome still has sleeves bursting with tricks."

"Guy Klucevsek is one of the world's most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.

He is the recipient of a 2010 United States Artists Collins Fellowship, an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to "America's finest artists."

He has premiered over 50 solo accordion pieces, including his own, as well as those he has commissioned from Mary Ellen Childs, William Duckworth, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Jerome Kitzke, Stephen Montague, Somei Satoh, Lois V Vierk, and John Zorn.

Performances include the Ten Days on the Island Festival (Tasmania), the Adelaide Festival (Australia), the Berlin Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival/USA, BAM Next Wave Festival, Cotati Accordion Festival, San Antonio International Accordion Festival, Vienna International Accordion Festival, and the children's television show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

His 1987 project, Polka From the Fringe, a collection of commissioned polkas by Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, Bobby Previte, Carl Finch, et. al., toured around the world and was released on 2 cds on the eva label, and were named "best recordings 1992" on WNYC-FM's "New Sounds" program.

In 1996, he founded Accordion Tribe, an international ensemble of composer/accordionists Otto Lechner (Austria), Maria Kalanemi (Finland), Lars Hollmer (Sweden), Bratko Bibic (Slovenia) and himself. They toured internationally from 1996-2009, are the subjects of Stefan Schwietert's award-winning documentary film, Accordion Tribe: Music Travels, and released 3 cds on the Intuition (Germany) label.

His music theatre scores include "Chinoiserie" and "Obon" with Ping Chong and Company, "Hard Coal," with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, "Industrious Angels" for Laurie McCants, "Cirque Lili" for French circus artist Jérôme Thomas, which has been performed over 250 times world wide, always with live music, and his own piece, "Squeeze Play," an evening of collaborations with Dan Hurlin, David Dorfman and Dan Froot, Claire Porter, and Mary Ellen Childs. He and Dan Hurlin were awarded, jointly, a BESSIE for, "The Heart of the Andes," which has played the Henson International Puppetry Festival, The Barbican Center in London, and the Ten Days on the Island Festival, Tasmania.

Klucevsek has released over 20 recordings as soloist/leader on Tzadik, Winter & Winter, innova, Starkland, Review, Intuition, CRI, and XI. Stereo Review cited his Starkland recording, Transylvanian Software, as a recording of special merit" (1995). He can also be heard on John Williams's orchestral scores for the Steven Spielberg films, "The Terminal," "Munich," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," and "The Adventures of Tin-Tin," and on A. R. Rahman's score for "People Like Us.""

"Hans Koch plays bass clarinet and soprano saxophone. He has played alongside of musicians such as Cecil Taylor, Evan Parker, Fred Frith, Paul Lovens, Barry Guy, Barre Phillips, Phil Minton, Peter Kowald, Hans Reichel, Tom Cora, Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, DJ M. Singe, Voicecrack, Günter Müller, Jean-Marc Montera, and Joëlle Léandre in Europe, America, and Asia-and still managed to maintain his association with the Koch-Schütz-Studer Trio. He has put out compact discs on various labels."

"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."

"Bart Maris is a Belgian trumpet player. He has performed in a very large number of bands, either as a group member or a guest musician on records or in concert. He was one of the original members of Fukkeduk with Niek Roseeuw, Kristof Roseeuw, Tom Dewulf, Jan Kuijken, Rik Verstrepen, Frank Gijsels, and also the Gerard Van Dongen Kwintet with Joe Williamson, Tom Wouters, Henk Bakker. He was in KAMIKAZE, with Tom Wouters, Filip Wauters, Kristof Roseeuw, also in X-Legged Sally with Peter Vermeersch, Pierre Vervloesem, Danny Van Hoeck, Pol Belgrado and Jean-luc Plouvier and later Peter Van Den Berghe. Maris joined Think of One, with Roel Poriau, Erik Morel, Tobe Wouters, Thomas Desmedt, David Bové and the Flat Earth Society (band). He also plays in the Brussels mestizo band Jaune toujours, with his brother Piet Maris, Electric Barbarian, Synaesthetic Trip by Edward Perraud, with Benoit Delbecq (piano), and Arnault Cuisinier (bass), or in duo with Edward Perraud, Victor Toth Tercett with Matyas Szandai (bass), Robert Ikiz (drums), 1000 from Jan Klare (alto sax/ flute/clarinets) (munster-Germany) and Wilbert de Joode (bass) (Netherlands), Michael Vatcher (drums) (USA).

Other bands played with on a regular basis include rock, and dance, bands as The Whodads, Janez Dedt, The Groove Cartel, Muziekmaatschappij Excelsior, Arno, Corrie Van Binsbergen, The Simpletones, Das Kammer Orchestra (founded by Piet Jorens), Rouppe Group with Ab Baars, Klaas Hekman, Wilbert de Joode, Verian Weston and the Folk Big-Band Olla Vogala. His contributions can be heard on dozens of CDs by Belgian rock bands such as Dead Man Ray (Berchem), dEUS (In a Bar under the Sea, The Ideal Crash), Gorky (Monstertje) and Zita Swoon (Sunrise/), but also on discs by international artists such as Art Zoyd Armagedon for lille 2004, Symphonie pour le jour ou bruleront les cites with orchestre national de lille, Fred Frith, Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire, Salvatore Adamo, ( (Zanzibar (2003), Un soir au Zanzibar (2004)), Univers Zero Rhythmix - 2002, and Marc Moulin (Into the dark (2001)), Soplarte by Charlotte Van Wouwe, performing on glass trumpets, performing with the Michiel Braam (Trio and Bik Band Braam), Blast from Frank Crijns, Italian Band Cani Di Trufola, John Watts (from Fischer-Z). He joins in every time with the 'beukorkest' by Rik Van Iersel with the Dutch/American crew with folks like Woody&Paul, Jonnhy Dowd, Def-P from Osdorp Posse, André Manuel Stuurbaard Bakkebaard, Gary Lucas, Jozef van Wissem, Kyteman. He was with John Zorn in s'hertogenbosch on the opening of the Toonzaal and Dick van der Harst in his Banda Azufaifo and his big ouverture for Klangwolke in Linz and with George De Decker in a hommage piece to René Magritte, and the music for the Belgium TV series Recht op Recht, and also an orchestral piece for solo trumpet and guitar, Roland Van Campenhout. For occasion he performed with Jean-Luc Capozzo and Werni und Jendreiko, and was recently invited by Fred Van Hove to perform with Evan Parker, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Els Vandeweyer and Andre Goudbeek. Touring with Joost Buis and Tobias Delius, Jan Willem Van Der Ham, Alan Purves, Achim Kaufmann, performing in France with "69", a hardcore impro band with Jean Luc Guionnet, Jean-Phi Morel, Frank Vaillant, Edward Perraud, Frank Gaily, playing with Va Fan Fahre a Ghent-based Balkan/klezmer/Arab-band touring all over Europe, and Pandouring newborn Antwerp fanfare.

He also did a lot of theatre (L King of Pain by Luc Perceval), not only making the music, but also actively participating in the play, as in Aan Tafel, from Luc Nys, with Peter Gorissen and Some Voices with Antonio Tavares, and Virgula with Luanda and Pablo Casella and Giovanni Barcella. And music for dance, for David Hernandez Box, Meg Stuart It's about Time and as bandmember of X-Legged Sally in the Ultima Vez performances "Bereft of a Blisfull Union" (1996) and "Her Body Doesn't Fit Her Soul" (1993) by Wim Vandekeybus.

He performs with his own bands, and playing solo:

Les poubelles with Filip Wauters (guitars) and Tom Wouters (drums)p'tits cons/'tklein verbruik with Stefaan Blancke (trombone) and Roel Poriau (zabumba)Loops is a solo program with taperecordersmachines giving him the full background of a symphonical orchestraGLITS is a duo with pianist Peter Van Den Berghe, around his compositions.

He has played for 5 years in duo with cellist Lode Vercampt and created a whole repertoire for this special setting.

He has weekly sessions in the hotclub De gand in Ghent (groentenmarkt), hosting all the people on tour with off-days like Jimmy Tenor, Josh Berman, Jozef Dumoulin, Teun Verbruggen, Too Noisy Fish, Hasse Poulsen, 1000, I Am So Me, Peter Jacqmyn, Verian Weston, Fred Lohnberg-holm, Els Vandeweyer, de beren gieren, Zeger Vandenbussche...

He is also a Guest Professor of improvisation at the School of Arts in Ghent."

"Multi-instrumentalist/composer/improviser, Zeena Parkins, pioneer of contemporary harp practice and performance, reimagines the instrument as a "sound machine of limitless capacity." Parkins has built three versions of her one-of-a-kind electric harp and has extended the language of the acoustic harp with the inventive use of unusual playing techniques, preparations, and layers of electronic processing.

Inspired and connected to visual arts, dance, film, and history, Zeena follows a unique path in creating her compositional works. Through blending and morphing of both real and imagined instruments, crafting, recombining, and layering mangled, sliced, massaged or possibly disengaged sounds, drawing from extra-musical sources for unusual scoring and formal constructions as well as utilizing multi-speaker environments, Zeena remains in process with sound as material and music, engaged in translations of sonic states in the concert hall, the black box theater, the dance studio, the recording studio, the classroom, the cinema, the skyscraper, the ocean and the gallery. Zeena has a particularly strong commitment to making scores for dance and continues to re-evaluate the nature and issues of the body's imprint on sound and sound/music's imprint on movement.

Parkins's compositions have been commissioned by NeXtWorks Ensemble, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Roulette Intermedium, The Eclipse Quartet, William Winant, Bang on a Can, The Whitney Museum, The Tate Modern, Montalvo Arts Center, The Donaueschinger Musiktage and Sudwestrundfunk/SWR.

Parkins has released four solo records featuring her electric and acoustic harp playing and has released her compositions and band projects on six Tzadik recordings, with a new Tzadik CD with Ikue Mori and Phantom Orchard Orchestra, Trouble in Paradise, to be released in November 2012. As a sought-after collaborator Zeena has worked with: Fred Frith, Björk, Ikue Mori, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Maja Ratkje, Hild Sofie Tafjord, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Chris Cutler, Elliott Sharp, Nels Cline, Alex Cline, William Winant, Anthony Braxton, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Christian Marclay, Matmos, Yasunao Tone, So Percussion, Bobby Previte, Carla Kilhstedt, Tin Hat, James Fei, Kim Gordon, Lee Renaldo and Thurston Moore.

Awards: The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship, NYFA Music Fellowship, Meet the Composer Commission, NYSCA Composer Commission, Multi-Arts Production Fund Grant, American Music Center, BAFTA award for best interactive media with visual artist Mandy McIntosh and sound artist Kaffe Matthews, Peter S. Reed Fellowship, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust Commissions, Arts International, Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention for Phantom Orchard in the Digital Music category.

Curatorial: Guest curator for The Music Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria, co-curator of the Movement Research Festival: Sidewinder, in NYC and curator for a month + a week of shows at The Stone in NYC

Residencies: Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, Oxford University, Harvestworks, Steim, Paf: Performing Arts Forum, Wooda Arts Residency, Montalvo Arts Center, RPI/iEAR and The Watermill Center.

Teaching: Zeena has given lectures at Oxford and Princeton Universities and has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Bard and Mills College. Currently, Zeena is a Distinguished Visiting Professor, at Mills College Graduate Music Department."