"Katie Young: composer + electro-acoustic improviser + bassoonist. The curious timbres, expressive noises, and kinetic structures of my electroacoustic music explore the dramatic physicality of sound, shifting interpersonal dynamics, and associations with the familiar and the strange. Wet Ink, Talea, String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Spektral Quartet, Fonema Consort, Weston Olencki, Nico Couck, and others have performed my music. I'm excited about recent and coming-soon projects with the LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella series, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, the CSO's MusicNOW, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Distractfold Ensemble's Linda Jankowska.

As a bassoonist and improviser, I amplify my instrument and employ a flexible electronics setup. My debut solo album garnered praise in The Wire ("Bassoon colossus") and Downbeat ("seriously bold leaps for the bassoon"). Collaboration is central to my practice, and I perform regularly with my long-standing ensembles Pretty Monsters, Architeuthis Walks on Land, and Till by Turning."

"Anne Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player living in Brooklyn, NY. She studied music composition and english at the University of Iowa and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she recently completed her Ph.D. Her music combines her knowledge of acoustics and contemporary composition/improvisation. Her electronic music has focused on exploiting the natural acoustic phenomena of unique architectural spaces through minimal processing of field recordings. Her composition has focused on the orchestration of non-musical sounds, speech in particular. Her French horn playing has focused on electronic processing and extended techniques used in improvisatory settings, as a soloist and with Fraufraulein and Delicate Sen, among others. Her acoustics research has focused on the use of ambisonics for stage acoustics. "

"Hi, I'm Sam. I was born and raised in Western Massachusetts, in a small town called Worthington. I left there in 2000 to attend Oberlin College, where I met many of the musicians I still collaborate with.

I moved to New York in 2004 and settled in the Astoria, Queens neighborhood, working as a nanny as I got my musical career going. I was playing a lot of improvised music at the time (still do!), and met many like-minded players through playing in the New York Soundpainting Orchestra and volunteering and generally hanging out at the Stone. Parallel to my activity as a serious improviser of music, I hooked up with several of the extremely talented rock musicians and songwriters that live in this city, and also found myself getting involved in playing music for theater and dance. I started touring a fair amount and meeting people all over the US and Europe. Don't let people tell you that being a musician isn't awesome.

I think of myself as a trombonist, though I play an increasing number of other instruments pretty decently. The trombone is the instrument that I play every day and can usually count on to best express myself with. However, as the Frank Zappa saying goes, "you can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." So sometimes I rely on the electric bass, or my voice, or the tuba, or the guitar, or the ukulele to say what I want. I've even got my sister's oboe from high school that I break out on rare occasions. I tell you, when you've been playing the trombone your whole life and dealing with the difficulty of slide technique and then you pick up an instrument like the oboe that has BUTTONS, it's liberating!

It would be silly not to list by name some of the people I've worked with in New York. These are the people who shape who I am as a player, which is very closely related to who I am as a person. You can hear some of this music elsewhere on this website, and for those of you who are able to make it to a show, I try to make it special every time. Starring, Skeletons, Nervous Cabaret, Anthony Braxton, Talibam!, Joachim Badenhorst, The Talking Band, Cynthia Hopkins, Peter Evans, Mitra Sumara, Kagel Nacht, Jim Bianco, Johnny Society, Blueberry, Capillary Action, Mary Halvorson, Kevin Shea's Lonely Goldmine of Symbiotic Subterfuge, Jeremiah Cymerman, Frantz Loriot, Moppa Elliott, Walter Thompson, TILT Brass, 5 for Marion, Levon Helm, Dubl Handi, Charlie Rauh, John Zorn, Guardian Alien, Yellowbirds, Mettawee River Theater Company, Jessy Carolina, Yasanao Tone, Langhorne Slim, Chris Ferris, Red Dive, Amanda Palmer, The National Reserve, the Dirty Water Dogs, Kabloona, Tin Pan, the Drunkard's Wife, Paranoid Larry, Yoshi Wada, Super Hi-Fi, Shahzad Ismaily, Ed Pastorini, Louise DE Jensen, James Ilgenfritz, Kamala Sankaram, Banana Bag & Bodice, Rick Burkhardt, Cesar Alvarez, Gordon Webster, David First & The Western Enisphere."

"Born in Boston in 1977, Brooklyn-based drummer Tomas Fujiwara emerged during the early to mid-2000s as a valued sideman before forming his own quintet, Tomas Fujiwara & the Hook Up, which gathered accolades for blending influences such as Wayne Shorter, Taleb Kweli, and Me'Shell Ndegéocello with the experimental and unpredictable spirit of the 21st century Brooklyn creative jazz scene. After studying for eight years with drummer and educator Alan Dawson in the Boston area, Fujiwara moved to New York at the age of 17. His first performing experiences included a five-year stint beginning around the turn of the millennium with the off-Broadway show Stomp, but he also began appearing as a sideman on jazz recordings (e.g., Three Souls by the Adam Rafferty Trio in 2003) and moving in exploratory, adventurous directions.

Fujiwara developed a particularly strong collaborative relationship with New Haven, Connecticut-based cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, whose own avant-leaning ensembles have featured a number of top Brooklyn improvising musicians. Fujiwara first appeared with Bynum on two 2007 recordings, The Middle Picture by the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet (Firehouse 12) and True Events by the Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo (482 Music). During the following years, the drummer appeared on the Bynum Sextet albums Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths (hatOLOGY, 2009), Apparent Distance (Firehouse 12, 2011), and Navigation (Possibility Abstracts X & XI) (Firehouse 12, 2013), and the Bynum/Fujiwara Duo album Stepwise (Nottwo, 2010). Fujiwara is also a member of Positive Catastrophe, a ten-piece outfit co-led by Bynum and percussionist Abraham Gomez-Delgado and inspired by Sun Ra and Latin jazz; the group has released two albums on Cuneiform, Garabatos Volume One (2009) and Dibrujo, Dibrujo, Dibrujo... (2012).

Another musician with whom Fujiwara has often worked, guitarist Mary Halvorson, also often travels in the same creative orbit as Taylor Ho Bynum; like Fujiwara, Halvorson is a member of the Bynum Sextet, and along with Bynum and violist Jessica Pavone, the drummer and guitarist formed the collective quartet the Thirteenth Assembly, which has recorded two albums for the Important Records label, 2009's (un)sentimental and 2011's Station Direct. Fujiwara, Halvorson, and Bynum also appeared as members of the Chicago-New York nonet Living by Lanterns, whose New Myth/Old Science album -- based on fragments of music recorded by Sun Ra in 1961 -- appeared on Cuneiform in 2012. In 2014 Cuneiform released another album featuring Fujiwara and Halvorson, the eponymous debut of Thumbscrew, a collaborative trio also including veteran bassist Michael Formanek.

Fujiwara first assembled his Hook Up quintet in 2008, later describing the bandmembers as "some of the most important musicians in my life" -- and given all of Fujiwara and Halvorson's recorded appearances together in various settings, it was no surprise that the guitarist was in the lineup. Also featuring tenor saxophonist Brian Settles, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, and bassist Danton Boller, Tomas Fujiwara & the Hook Up released their debut album, Actionspeak, on 482 Music in 2010. Featuring Trevor Dunn on bass in place of Boller, the group's sophomore album, The Air Is Different, arrived (also on 482 Music) in 2012.

The many other projects in which Fujiwara has played as a collaborator or sideman include the Steve Lacy tribute band Ideal Bread, the eight-piece "bhangra funk dhol 'n' brass" outfit Red Baraat, and saxophonist/clarinetist Matt Bauder's acoustic jazz quintet. "

"One of improvised music's most in-demand guitarists, Mary Halvorson has been active in New York since 2002, following jazz studies at Wesleyan University and the New School. Critics have called her "a singular talent" (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), "NYC's least-predictable improviser" (Howard Mandel, City Arts), "one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz-or otherwise" (Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal), and "one of today's most formidable bandleaders" (Francis Davis, Village Voice). The Philadelphia City Paper's Shaun Brady adds, "Halvorson has been steadily reshaping the sound of jazz guitar in recent years with her elastic, sometimes-fluid, sometimes-shredding, wholly unique style."

After three years of study with visionary composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Ms. Halvorson became an active member of several of his bands, including his trio, septet and 12+1tet. To date, she appears on six of Mr. Braxton's recordings. Ms. Halvorson has also performed alongside iconic guitarist Marc Ribot, in his bands Sun Ship and The Young Philadelphians, and with the bassist Trevor Dunn in his Trio-Convulsant. Over the past decade she has worked with such diverse bandleaders as Tim Berne, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomas Fujiwara, Ingrid Laubrock, Myra Melford, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey and Mike Reed.

As a bandleader and composer, one of Ms. Halvorson's primary outlets is her longstanding trio, featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith. Since their 2008 debut album, Dragon's Head, the band has been recognized as a rising star jazz band by Downbeat Magazine for five consecutive years. Ms. Halvorson's quintet, which adds trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon to the trio, has released two critically acclaimed albums on the Firehouse 12 label: Saturn Sings and Bending Bridges. Most recently she has added two additional band members-tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trombonist Jacob Garchik-to form a septet, featured on her 2013 release Illusionary Sea. Ms. Halvorson also co-leads a longstanding chamber-jazz duo with violist Jessica Pavone, the avant-rock band People and the collective ensembles Thumbscrew and Secret Keeper."

"A proponent of new music, Erica Dicker is committed to creative collaboration with living composers and innovation in both the classical concert hall and nontraditional contexts. Erica is a founding member of the contemporary chamber music collective Till By Turning, an ensemble devoted to reinforcing the modern canon and linking educational programs to their repertoire. As part of the New York-based horn trio, Kylwyria, Erica and her colleagues, Julia Den Boer (piano) and John Gattis (horn), work to generate interest in and develop adventurous chamber music repertoire for their unique instrumentation through dynamic programming and commissioning. Erica is also violinist in Katherine Young's Pretty Monsters, as well as Vaster Than Empires, an electro-acoustic collaboration with composer and sound artist Paul Schuette and percussionist Allen Otte. She has premiered works by many composers including solo works written for her by Olivia Block, Turkar Gasimzada, Ryan Ingebritsen and Katherine Young. Erica also writes and performs her own music, exploring the idiomatic modalities and textures of her instrument. Taking Auspices, her debut solo album, is released by Tubapede Records as a digital download and limited edition vinyl LP.

Erica serves as concertmaster of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation Orchestra, an ensemble founded to document and disseminate the operas by composer and multi-reedist Anthony Braxton, and has also performed with Braxton's Falling River Quartet and Diamond Curtain Wall Quartet at festivals in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, and Turkey and appeared with the 12 + 1-tet at the 2012 Venice Biennale. Erica also writes about and curates performances of Braxton's work, most recently for the International Contemporary Ensemble at the 2017 Ojai Music Festival.

A passionate advocate for preserving the vitality of orchestral performance, Erica also lends her talent to orchestras across the Midwestern United States, such as the Grand Rapids Symphony. She previously served as associate concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony and associate principal second violin of the South Bend Symphony, and held leadership roles in festivals including Spoleto USA and the National Repertory Orchertra. In Germany Erica was part of the Bergische Symphoniker and performed with the Bachakademie Stuttgart International Festival Orchestra under the direction of Helmut Rilling.

Erica received her training at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM), the University of Minnesota (MM), and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (DMA). Her primary teachers include Gabriel Pegis, Marilyn McDonald, and Jorja Fleezanis.

Erica resides in Astoria, New York with her husband and creative collaborator, tubist Dan Peck."

"Jessica Pavone (composer, viola, violin, el.bass) has performed in countless improvisation, avant jazz, experimental, folk, soul, and chamber ensembles since moving to NYC in 2000. She currently plays with Normal Love, in a duo with guitarist Mary Halvorson, with Anthony Braxton's ensembles and as a solo violist. As a composer, The Wire magazine praised her "ability to transform a naked tonal gesture into something special," and The New York Times described her music as "distinct and beguiling...its core is steely, and its execution clear."

Pavone's recent works for solo viola and voice stem from years of concentrated long tone practice and an interest in repetition, song form, and sympathetic vibration. She combines her long tone rituals with delay, understated melodies and sparse lyrical content while continuously experimenting with new forms. She is interested in the physicality of performing her somewhat larger-than-comfortable instrument and believes that cultivating physical bodies as a strong container for her thoughts is part of the creative process.

As an instrumentalist, she has personally worked with and interpreted new music by; Aaron Seigel, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Elliott Sharp, Glenn Branca, Henry Threadgill, Leo Smith, Jason Ajemian, Jason Cady, Jeremiah Cymerman, John King, Matana Roberts, Matthew Welch, Tristan Perich, Tyondai Braxton and William Parker; and, has played strings in bands such as Christy and Emily, Pure Horsehair, White Blue Yellow and Clouds, Joy Mega, and The Artificials.

Pavone has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, performing in venues ranging from international music festivals, universities, and art galleries, to community centers and basements. Her music has premiered in venues in New York City such as, Roulette, Issue Project Room, and The Kitchen, and at the Klangbad Festival in Sheer, Germany. In 2011 she was featured in NPR's "The Mix: 100 Composers Under 40." She has received grants and commissions from the Aaron Copland Recording Fund, the American Music Center, New Music USA for her collaboration with choreographer, Anna Sperber, The Kitchen, MATA, The Jerome Foundation, The Tri-Centric Foundation, Experiments in Opera, and the chamber music collective, Till By Turning."

"Tim Dahl is a professional electric and double bass player, vocalist, keyboardist and composer living in New York City. He is best known as the bass player of the noise-rock band Child Abuse and Lydia Lunch's Retrovirus. He also writes and performs for the jazz ensemble Pulverize The Sound.

Dahl has toured extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. He has performed with many notable musicians, composers and performers including Yusef Lateef, Archie Shepp, Eugene Chadbourne, Tatsuya Yoshida, Von Freeman, Stanley Jordan, Mary Halvorson, Malcolm Mooney, Marc Ribot, Brian Chase, Hamid Drake, Elliott Sharp, Weasel Walter, Marni Nixon, Peter Evans, Kevin Shea, Mick Barr, Lydia Lunch, Jan Terri, The Bureau of Atomic Tourism, Ava Mendoza etc.

As a bass player he is notable for unique style and technical savviness. Clifford Allen of Tiny Mixtapes' wrote "Tim Dahl [...] approaches his well-worn axe with a battery of pedals and loops, combining determinate speed with murkier sonics to create a landscape not unlike a harsh, speed-freak variant on Hugh Hopper."

Dahl currently lives in Brooklyn and is an active member in the music scene there."