"Assif Tsahar (born Israel, June 11, 1969) is an Israeli tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist. He lived in New York City from 1990 to the early 2000s, returning to Israel.

He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, William Parker, Mat Maneri, Hamid Drake, Peter Kowald, Susie Ibarra, Rashied Ali, Warren Smith, Wilbur Morris, Le Quan Ninh, John Tchicai, Fred Anderson, Rob Brown, Roy Campbell, Gerald Cleaver, Agusti Fernandez, Ken Vandermark, Kent Kessler, Joe Daley, Herb Robertson, Cuong Vu, Chris Jonas, Ori Kaplan, Oscar Noriega, Roman Stolyar, Alex Harding, Steve Swell, Cooper-Moore, and Tom Abbs

He founded the label Hopscotch Records in 1999. In 2006 he opens the music club Levontin7 with Daniel Sarid in Tel Aviv. "

"Tatsuya Nakatani. Acoustic Sound Artist, Master Percussionist. b. 1970, Osaka Japan

Tatsuya Nakatani is an acoustic sound artist and master percussionist originally from Osaka, Japan. He has released over eighty recordings in North America and Europe. Residing in the USA since the mid-nineties, he has performed countless solo percussion concerts and has collaborated with hundreds of artists in international music festivals, university concert halls, art museums and independent venues. Infamous for his constant touring, Nakatani criss-crosses the country every year inspiring audiences with his pioneering sound. In addition to his solo performances, he conducts the Nakatani Gong Orchestra (NGO), a mobile community engagement project which organizes local ensembles performing on multiple bowed gongs.Nakatani teaches master classes and workshops at universities, giving students an opportunity to share his unique musical approach and philosophy for creating visceral, non-linear music.

He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. Utilizing drums, gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, wooden sticks, metal objects, and the bows and mallets he handcrafts in his Kobo; he creates an intense, intuitively primitive, expressive music that defies genre. His work references improvised-experimental music, free jazz, and noise, while still retaining the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music."

"Jean Cook, violinist and Treasurer

Jean Cook has been playing violin since 1979. She is part of the 11tet, a New York based jazz composers workshop, and is a founding member of the PnR Salon in Washington, DC, which brings together post-punk rockers and classically trained musicians. In 2000, she appeared at the Kennedy Center's Hip-Hop Festival and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival with the Hip-Hop Philharmonic, a DC based live hip hop orchestra. Occasionally she plays around New York with the Dixieland group "Wriggle's Red-Hot Agate-Cracking Jassers". She currently records and performs with Beauty Pill, Gena Rowlands Band, Ida, Jenny Toomey, and Jon Langford/Ship and Pilot.

Jean produced and hosted "The Twentieth Century String Quartet" on WKCR-FM, New York from 1995-1996. She was the publicist for Washington Performing Arts Society for three years before moving to New York in 2000. Recently, she curated a western classical recital series for WPAS and produced the multimedia DIY opera, The Nitrate Hymnal. She currently works for a political group called Air Traffic Control that helps musicians to be more effective in the current election cycle."