"Björn Meyer - six-string acoustic and electric bass guitars, bass-mandola

He grew up next to a piano outside Stockholm, studied trumpet in the Swedish youth music program, sang in a boys choir and played guitar in local garage-rock bands. Just shortly before his eighteenth birthday a jam session put him in direct contact with the electric bass. Those first notes, played on a left-behind instrument, opened up the door to an irresistible, resonating universe of sounds. After finishing a masters degree in Computer Science and Engineering he decided to "take a year off" and pursue his passion for the bass - a year that has lasted unbroken since 1989.

Already as a child Meyer had a great interest in how things work and what could be done to modify their normal function. The question "is this the only way it can work?" initiated a few disastrous attempts at modifying anything from radios to vacuum cleaners. However, from his first days as a bass-player, that same question has been a strong driving force of musical creativity. Time and again, the urge to express some specific musical ideas has inspired him to develop new and very personal ways of using the bass-guitar.

Meyer's unmistakable musical handwriting draws largely from a curiosity towards anything from music-styles, playing techniques, electronics, the construction of the actual instruments all the way to the inner composition of a string. In addition, Meyer also considers the interaction between acoustic space and the electronic properties of the bass guitar an important part of the musical experience. As a result, he continues to expand his range of sounds and technical solutions enabling him to shape his sonic world even more carefully.

Meyer has integrated his distinct voice in the most diverse contexts, in- and outside the natural habitat of his instrument. More often than not, he has found himself in settings challenging traditional distinctions such as acoustic or electric, composed or improvised, ancient or contemporary. He has worked alongside Persian harpist and singer Asita Hamidi and is a long term collaborator with Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem. He has spent more than twenty years with Swedish nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin and percussionist Fredrik Gille in Bazar Blå, co-defining the sound of contemporary Swedish folk music. For more than a decade he was a member of the minimalistic groove-collective Nik Bärtsch's Ronin and thus helped to shape what has become known as "Zen-funk".

Recent years have seen the birth of NEN, featuring Mats Eser, Chrigel Bosshard and Ania Losinger with her unique instrument Xala, as well as AMIIRA - an improvising trio with Samuel Rohrer on drums and the bassclarinet, soprano sax of Klaus Gesing. Meyer is also a frequent collaborator in the musical structures of Swiss composer / reed player Don Li and teaches occasionally at the conservatories in Stockholm, Zurich, Bern, Lausanne and Lucerne.

In the autumn of 2017 - thirty years after his first encounter with the electric bass-guitar - ECM released his first solo-album "Provenance"."

"Björn Meyer - six-string acoustic and electric bass guitars, bass-mandola

He grew up next to a piano outside Stockholm, studied trumpet in the Swedish youth music program, sang in a boys choir and played guitar in local garage-rock bands. Just shortly before his eighteenth birthday a jam session put him in direct contact with the electric bass. Those first notes, played on a left-behind instrument, opened up the door to an irresistible, resonating universe of sounds. After finishing a masters degree in Computer Science and Engineering he decided to "take a year off" and pursue his passion for the bass - a year that has lasted unbroken since 1989.

Already as a child Meyer had a great interest in how things work and what could be done to modify their normal function. The question "is this the only way it can work?" initiated a few disastrous attempts at modifying anything from radios to vacuum cleaners. However, from his first days as a bass-player, that same question has been a strong driving force of musical creativity. Time and again, the urge to express some specific musical ideas has inspired him to develop new and very personal ways of using the bass-guitar.

Meyer's unmistakable musical handwriting draws largely from a curiosity towards anything from music-styles, playing techniques, electronics, the construction of the actual instruments all the way to the inner composition of a string. In addition, Meyer also considers the interaction between acoustic space and the electronic properties of the bass guitar an important part of the musical experience. As a result, he continues to expand his range of sounds and technical solutions enabling him to shape his sonic world even more carefully.

Meyer has integrated his distinct voice in the most diverse contexts, in- and outside the natural habitat of his instrument. More often than not, he has found himself in settings challenging traditional distinctions such as acoustic or electric, composed or improvised, ancient or contemporary. He has worked alongside Persian harpist and singer Asita Hamidi and is a long term collaborator with Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem. He has spent more than twenty years with Swedish nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin and percussionist Fredrik Gille in Bazar Blå, co-defining the sound of contemporary Swedish folk music. For more than a decade he was a member of the minimalistic groove-collective Nik Bärtsch's Ronin and thus helped to shape what has become known as "Zen-funk".

Recent years have seen the birth of NEN, featuring Mats Eser, Chrigel Bosshard and Ania Losinger with her unique instrument Xala, as well as AMIIRA - an improvising trio with Samuel Rohrer on drums and the bassclarinet, soprano sax of Klaus Gesing. Meyer is also a frequent collaborator in the musical structures of Swiss composer / reed player Don Li and teaches occasionally at the conservatories in Stockholm, Zurich, Bern, Lausanne and Lucerne.

In the autumn of 2017 - thirty years after his first encounter with the electric bass-guitar - ECM released his first solo-album "Provenance"."

"Drummer and composer, Francesco Cusa was born in Catania in 1966.

He played with well-known musicians such as Paolo Fresu, Tino Tracanna, Attilio Zanchi, Marco Micheli, Bruno Tommaso, Larry Smith, Walter Schmocker, Lauro Rossi, Gianni Gebbia, Fabrizio Puglisi, Stefano De Bonis, Guglielmo Pagnozzi, Domenico Caliri, Luigi Mosso, Edoardo Marraffa, Cristina Zavalloni, Lelio Giannetto, Alberto Capelli, Riccardo Pittau, Mirko Sabatini , Jay Rodriguez, Butch Morris, Jon Rose, Michel Godard, Kenny Wheeler, Garbis Dedeian, Steve Lacy, Tim Berne, Stefano D'Anna, Pietro Ciancaglini, Paolino Dalla Porta, Roy Paci, Elliot Sharp, Saadet Türköz, Flying Luttembachers, Andy Sheppard, Michael Riessler, Yves Robert, Giorgio Conte, Fred Giuliani, Zu, Mohammed El Bawi, E. Glerum, Assif Tsahar, Natalia M.King, Lionel Rolland , Dj.Pushy, Christophe Monniot, Tanja Feichtmair, Manu Codjia, Emil Spany, Arrington De Dionyso, Gianluca Petrella, Claudio Lugo, Marco Cappelli, Jean Marc Montera, Ab Baars, Ig Henneman, Danilo Gallo, Beppe Scardino, Francesco Bigoni, Stefano Senni, Piero Bittolo Bon, i Robotobibok, Giovanni Falzone, Tito Magialajo, Enrico Terragnoli, Carlos Zingaro, Gianni Lenoci, ecc. the dancers Cinzia Scordia and Florence La Porte , the visual artist Fred Gautnier, and the writers collectif Wu Ming.

He was the promoting partner of Bassesfere's collective and actually is envolved in the cultural association for improvised and avant-garde music Ex B. and with the project/label Improvvisatore Involontario.He performed in several international music festivals in France, Romania, Croazia, Slovenia, Bosnia/Erzegovina, Holland, Germany, Switzerland , Austria, Hungary, Norway, Spain, Belgium.

He's leader of the trio Skrunch and of the re-sonorization project for the movies Aurora, Solomovie plays Buster Keaton, Per un Pugno di Dollari and co-leader of The Body Hammer, Switters, Altomaria, Negri Volanti.

He collaborates with the following groups: Cristina Zavalloni Open Quartet, Trinkle Trio (feat. Michel Godard), Paolo Sorge Jazz Waiters, Feet on Mud the drums duo Complexe Machine."

"For the past 40 years Mike Cooper has been an international musical explorer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres. Initially a folk-blues guitarist and singer songwriter his work has diversified to include improvised and electronic music, live music for silent films, radio art and sound installations. He is also a music journalist, writing features for magazines, particularly on Pacific music and musicians, a visual artist, film and video maker, collector of Hawaiian shirts and appears on more than 60 records to date."

"Born and raised in East New York Brooklyn, Vocal Artist, Performer, Composer, Storyteller, Interdisciplinary Artist Shelley Hirsch has been pushing boundaries with her unique vocal art and performance work, drawing on her life experiences, her memory, her vivid imagination for decades.

The New York Times called her "A woman of a thousand voices... She offered an enthralling demonstration of the way songs, vocal styles and language might have evolved out of more primal musical impulses".

Hirsch's multimedia performances, compositions, improvisations, electronic music pieces, sound installations, collaborations and radio plays have been presented at concert halls, museums, theaters, galleries, clubs, radio, worldwide in venues including Alice Tully Hall, Roulette, Experimental Intermedia Foundation and CBGB's in NYC; Experimenta Festival in Buenos Aires, What is Music? Festival Melbourne Australia; Beyond Innocence Festival in Kobe Japan; City of Women Festival Llubliana Slovenia; Dom Cultural Center Moscow; Akademie Der Künste Berlin; Next Festival Bratislava Slovakia; Time Festival Ghent, Belgium; Angelica Festival Bologna Italy, All Ears Festival Oslo Norway; Red House Sofia Bulgaria; Taktlos Festival Bern Switzerland; New Music America Festival Helena Montana, TBA Festival Portland Oregon, and hundreds more..

In 2018 decades of her work were acquired for the archive at The Fales Library part of NYU, for their Downtown Collection.Other prestigious honors include The John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition 2017; The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists 2017; The Creative Capital Grant 2002; New York Foundation of the Arts in Music/Sound 2010, Multidisciplinary/ Performance 2003, Music Composition1996 and the New Forms Category 1987; Two NYSCA Grants in Vocal Music 2016 and Electronic Music in 2007; The DAAD Residency Grant in Berlin 1992 and a record six Artist in Residency Grants at Harvestworks Digital Media Center in NYC from 1985-2016.In 2019, Hirsch was Artist in Residence at Queenslab in Queens New York.A collection of the writing and images she produced during her Residency will be published in Summer 2019

Hirsch can be heard on over 70 recordings with several on the Tzadik, FMP, InTakt, and on Nonesuch, Sound Aspects, Tellus, Apollo, Innocent Records, Don Giovanni and many more..

She leads the workshop Explore Your 1000 Voices in NYC, nationally and internationally."