"Burkhard Beins, born 1964 in Lower Saxony, lives in Berlin since 1995. As a composer/performer working in the fields of experimental music and sound art he is known for his definitive use of percussion in combination with selected sound objects. Furthermore, he works with live-electronics/analog synthesizers and has conceived several sound installations.

Since the late 1980's he is performing at internationally renowned venues and festivals throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia as diverse as the LMC Festival (London), Int. Ferienkurse (Darmstadt), SKIF (St. Petersburg), Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Musique Action (Nancy), Choppa Festival (Singapore), Cave 12 (Geneva), The Now now (Sydney), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Kaleidophon (Ulrichsberg), Kid Ailack Music Hall (Tokyo), Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam), Liquid Architecture (Australia), Meteo (Mulhouse), Taktlos (CH), Berghain (Berlin), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), Serralves (Porto), Wien Modern (Vienna), MoMA (New York), New Music Festival (Hanoi), Irtijal (Beirut), or Maerzmusik (Berlin).

Alongside his solo work he is a member of the ensembles Polwechsel, Activity Center, The Sealed Knot, Perlonex, Sawt Out, Trio Sowari, Tree, Junk Orbit, Fracture Mechanics, and Splitter Orchester and also works with composers/musicans such as Sven-Åke Johansson, Andrea Neumann, Keith Rowe, Axel Dörner, Tarek Atoui, John Tilbury, or Charlemagne Palestine.

Burkhard Beins gives workshops based on his graphic score system Adapt/Oppose, has published several articles on music theory, and is a co-editor of the book "Echtzeitmusik Berlin - Self-Defining a Scene" as well as the curator of a follow-up 3CD compilation featuring the Berlin Echtzeitmusik scene. Meanwhile he has released more than 50 CDs and LPs on labels like Zarek, Erstwhile, 2:13 Music, Hat Hut, Potlatch, Absinth, alt.vinyl, God Records, Mikroton, or Confront."

"His main activities are comics, painting and music. After a lot of works for different publishers and magazines, it is in March 2000 that he releases some of his more personal works in his Journal 1999 (a dairy in comics' format). He self-published eight other books and many short stories since.

It is also in 2000 that he plays for the first time in concert, in the Strike's pub in Beirut. This concert, a duo with Lebanese sax player Christine Sehnaoui, is probably the first improvised music concert in the Middle East.

In 2001, together with guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui , he creates the MILL association that curates since IRTIJAL an annual international festival for free music in Beirut as well as various concerts and events (IRTIJAL saw over the years some great improvisers like Fred Van Hove, Johannes Bauer, Lê Quan Ninh, Franz Hautzinger...).

In august 2002, together with Sharif Sehnaoui and double bass player Raed Yassine he recorded the album A published by La CD-Thèque, Beirut.

After meeting Franz Hautzinger by chance in Lebanon in February 2003, they played in duo in Beirut and in Paris and in trio with Japanese laptop player Taku Unami at the IRTIJAL 2003 festival. Then they were joined by Sharif Sehnaoui and Helge Hinteregger to form Oriental Space quartet that played in Nickelsdorf, Berlin, Vienna and Klagenfurt. A recording of this group is avilable on the Austrian label aRtonal, and a recording of the duo Hautzinger/Kerbaj is to be released soon on the Portugese label Creative Sources.

Between 2000 and 2004, Mazen Kerbaj played in solo and various groups in a lot of venues in Lebanon, Damascus, Paris, Bordeaux, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia...

Regular and occasional partners includes: Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, Raed Yassine, Charbel Haber, Jad Balaben, Jassem Hindi, Franz Hautzinger, Helge Hinteregger, Lê Quan Ninh, Bertrand Denzler, Stéphane Rives, Edward Perraud, Taku Unami, Guillermo Gregorio, Gene Coleman, Toshimaru Nakamura, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jim Baker, Jack

Wright, Mike Bullok, Vic Rawlings, Nate Wooley...Kerbaj is going to release soon a solo CD and a quartet with Sharif and Christine Sehnaoui and Ingar Zach, on the newly born Lebanese label Al-Maslakh (the slaughterhouse)."

"Michael Vorfeld, born 1956, works as musician and visual artist based in Berlin. He plays percussion and self designed stringed instruments. The combination of these instruments with various and unusual playing techniques, allows him to create an exceptional variety of sounds. Michael Vorfeld works as an improvisor, composer and sound artist and is often involved in site specific art projects. His visual works are focusing on the use of light in relation to architecture. Besides solo activities he is a member of various ensembles and collaborates with artists of different art forms.

His list of activities includes performances among others at the "documenta 8", Kassel 1987 (with the artists group "Heinrich Mucken"), "Moltkerei Werkstatt", Cologne, "Het Apollohuis", Eindhoven, "Logos Foundation", Ghent, "Künstlerhaus am Deich", Bremen, "Palais des Beaux Arts", Brussel, "Melkweg", Amsterdam, "Expo - German Pavillon", Hannover, "Goethe Institut", Hanoi, "Experimental Intermedia", New York, "Podewil", Berlin, "Center of Contemporary Art", Warshow, "Plan B", Tokyo."