"Born as Luc Klaasen in 1958 in Holland. After being a taxi-driver in Amsterdam he started his activities as musician (The Ex), making films (Mal Films) and was also one of the founders of the CD distribution and production company 'Konkurrent Onafhankelijk Muziekbedrijf BV'. In 2015 he stopped with his work @ Konkurrent.

For many years he was one of the driving forces behind the band THE EX.The Ex received large international recognition for there unconventional and fresh interpretation of music and its different styles, their consistent political attitude, their 'organic way' of making music and the fact they kept their independancy from the big commercial musicbusiness. After they won the national dutch pop-price 'BV POP' price in 1991 this appreciation only got bigger.

The Ex always worked with a diverge variety of artists and musicians like Han Bennink, Ab Baars, american avantgarde cellist Tom Cora (The Ex & Tom Cora 1991-1995), kurdish singer Brader, the Malian group Lanaya and toured with popgroups like Sonic Youth, Shellac, Chumbawamba, Tortoise & Fugazi.

One of his last projects within The Ex was the spectacular orchestra 'EX ORKEST': a 20 piece bigband with an enormous sound, dynamics and energy. Lyrics were written by the dutch writer and ex-soccer player Jan Mulder (Ajax, Anderlecht)."

"My story is quite simple, I was living in São Paulo (Brazil) a big city with 21.000.000 people and a incredible concrete jungle and it happen to be playing music too, after many years playing Brazilian music, free improvisation started to take place in my music.

Waking up and sleeping with this constant noise that this huge city makes it was inevitable to not have it on my music. As any 3rd world citizen I had to improvise every day and that is what happen to my "forró" (Brasilian music from the north east), became more and more full of noises and freer in the form and content.

So in 2005 after recording "Abaetetuba" and "Contra Mão" I thought that it was time to leave São Paulo and meet some other improvisers around the world. Now I am based in Amsterdam but have been for two years in London where I spent most of my time making music with some amazing musicians as Marcio Mattos, Veryan Weston, John Edwards, Steve Noble, Mark Sanders and also was part of the London Improvisers Orchestra together with Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker between other great musicians from the London free improv scene, that was to me a great school.

This orchestra has inspired me to start the Royal Improvisers Orchestra (RIO) in Holland and it has been playing since 2006, with 20 musicians from all over the world and from completely individual angels of music with musicians from Baroque to Punk Noise but with the same passion for the improvisation.

Here in Holland, beside my fix groups RIO, Caetitu, Abaetetuba and EkE, I have also been playing with some great musicians that I have learned a lot from as Han Bennink, Michael Vatcher, Luc Ex, Marcos Baggiani, Ab Baars, Cor Fuhler and other ZAAL100 (our free improv place in Amsterdam) friends."

"Born in Innsbruck (Austria) in 1979 Gerri picked up the drums when he was 9 years old. After some brass-band and grunge-rock teenage years he studied jazz at the Conservatories of Innsbruck (AT) and later in Amsterdam (NL), where he graduated in 2006. After being part of diverse groups from free-improvisation, alt-rock, experimental electronic club music and avant-pop he is interested in playing with different ways to expand boundaries in music and its genres. Current working bands include Knalpot, Knalpot Dub, Naked Wolf and Rooie Waas. Regular and irregular projects are Bakker, Goudsmit & Jäger, Bandwidth + Gerri Jäger, Raphael Vanoli's Stolpernova, EKE, Franz Hautzinger's Regenorchester XV, Natalio Sued's Opositor, Whale Oil, Tuthola, Sgt. Fuzzy and his solo performance. He has performed with Eirikur Olaffsson (Mum, Sigur Ros), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (The Thing), Colin Stetson (Bon Iver), Shahzad Ismaily (Tom Waits, Bonny Prince Billy), Marc Ducret (Tim Berne), Fred Frith (Brian Eno), Ron Anderson (The Molecules), Dave Rempis (Peter Brötzmann), Frank Möbus & Rudi Mahall (Der Rote Bereich), Achim Kaufmann, Graduale Nobili (Björk), Jozef Dumoulin (Lidlboj), Franz Hautzinger (Regenorchester) and Amsterdam's heavy-weights Wolter Wierbos, Han Bennink, Ab Baars, Michael Moore, Terrie Ex and Kaja Draksler a.o. He toured throughout Europe, USA, Russia and Brazil and released music on Rat Records, Eat Concrete, Blowpipe Records, Red Note, PAO Records, HAK Records, Geweih Ritual, El Negocito, Kaiser Label and Cuneiform."

"Felicity Provan is an Australian jazz trumpeter, singer and -kornettistin.

Provan studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, where he was in Melbourne Improvisers Association active. She has worked with various jazz and improvisation ensemble, composed for dance and film projects and was 1985 Composer in Residence at the dance company Feats Unlimited.

In 1990 she moved to Amsterdam, where they u. A. With Curtis Clark , Corrie van Binsbergen , Ab Baars , Han Bennink , Sean Bergin , Michael Moore , Tobias Delius , Michael Vatcher and Jacques Palinckx worked. With her duo partner Belinda Moody she undertook a tour of Australia in 1993, in 1994 by the Netherlands.

In 1995 she worked as a singer in the project Worlds of Belgian saxophonist Erwin Vann with. Their composition was Dr Jasz at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam by the performance artist in 1995 Teo Joling listed. With its Poe -Adaption tar to Feer she toured in 1998 by the Netherlands. In the same year she performed at Rajesh Mehta with dance theater project Monsoon.

She went with Rajesh Mehta Group Collective 3+ on, working with the group De Commotie and is a member of Joost Buis ' Famous Astro Notes. With the Canadian bassist Joe Williamson and the Australian percussionist Steve Heather , she founded in 1998, a trio, a quartet with drummer Chris Joris , the Australian pianist Walter lamp and the Dutch bassist Arnold Dooyeweerd she works in Belgium. "

"Mikael Szafirowski is a Finnish guitar and cavaquinho player residing around the west of Europe, mainly in Amsterdam and Köln. He is markedly working on expanding the vocabulary of amplified string instruments by way of extended playing techniques, as well as exploring new forms of structure and sound in music. Having lived his formative years in the realm of jazz music, he is now looking at other avenues of expression, such as noise, free improvised music, contemporary classical music, and a mix of popular and world music.

Born in the summer of 1980 in Helsinki to a Finnish-Polish family, Mikael Szafirowski became well versed in culture clash at a young age. His insatiable ear for music from different cultures led him to travelling the world round on his LP-player. Having gone through a lot of instruments, landing on the electric guitar finally transformed this voyage from internal to the external. After intense years of studying jazz music with Neff Irizarry in the Pop&Jazz-Conservatory of Helsinki, it was time to pack up and move to Holland.Enrolling to the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, Mikael Szafirowski continued his jazz formation diving into the session scene in the Hague. Cutting his teeth on the competitive stage was all good and well, but there was yet more to discover, and after a year it felt a good time to leave the guitar for a while and delve into contemporary classical music. With a pen. During the following years studying with Gilius van Bergeijk and Calliope Tsoupaki, a whole new world opened. At that time he got heavily influenced by the likes of Morton Feldman, Iannis Xenakis, Edgar Varese, but also the music of Sonic Youth, Otomo Yoshide, Sonny Sharrock and Captain Beefheart.This whole gamut of experiences started to emerge again through the guitar and his newer second instrument, the cavaquinho. Mikael Szafirowski is one of the few musicians using this small brazilian string instrument in such a peculiar way. Detuned, feedbacking, this innocent looking thing turns from a howling beast to a whispering banshee. His guitar technique is highly personal, using harmonic feedback and various preparations to feed his musical curiosity.Moving to Amsterdam in 2007, and with a short stint in Paris in between, Mikael has become a permanent active member of the Amsterdam improvisation scene, having played and collaborated amongst others with Han Bennink, Ab Baars, Luc Ex, Wilbert De Joode, Oscar-Jan Hoogland, Yedo Gibson, Gerri Jaeger. His bands the Royal Improvisers Orchestra, Naked Wolf, Rooie Waas and NHC are a common sight at dutch venues as well as abroad from Serbia to Brazil."