"Tristan Honsinger told Kevin Whitehead, 'I grew up in New England, took up cello at age nine in Springfield, Massachusetts... My first teacher was a Dutch Jew. Almost all my teachers were European immigrants. Later I went to the New England Conservatory. It was quite a good school, but I didn't feel very welcome, so I went to Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore from '68 to '69. By then I'd had it, really, with the whole classical music world. I changed teachers so many times, I suppose I was confused by their contradictory advice'.

It was after moving to Montreal in 1969 that Honsiner began improvising and, after meeting Dutch percussionist Peter van Ginkel and listening to his copy of Topography of the lungs, decided he could play this music and uprooted to Europe, moving to Amsterdam in 1974: 'They arrested me the first time I played my cello in the street... confiscated our instruments'. As a result, he moved to Paris, travelled around France, eventually finding his way back to Amsterdam where he began playing with Maarten van Regteren Altena, Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg as well as being involved in Derek Bailey's Company Weeks and playing with Globe Unity.

The late '70s and early '80s were spent in Italy with Katie Duck, working with theatre - Duck had her group the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe - and Italian and Sardinian musicians. During this time, Honsinger started his group This, That and the Other, the early version including Tiziana Simona, Sean Bergin, Toshinori Kondo, Jean-Jacques Avenel and Michael Vatcher which recorded Picnic in Amsterdam in 1985. 'Because of a promoter's brilliant organising, the group kind of fell apart', but there have been fairly regular and recent incarnations, including an appearance at the Italian Angelica Festival in 1996.

Since the memorable set of concerts in Berlin in 1988, released on the much sought-after FMP box set, Honsinger has been a fairly regular member of Cecil Taylor's groups. At those concerts, Honsinger performed in a trio with Taylor and Evan Parker as well as being a member of the large European Orchestra but since then he has been a member of various Taylor groups, including the now-disbanded European Quartet with Harri Sjöström and Paul Lovens, including an unusual combination that performed at the Total Music Meeting in November 1999: the Cecil Taylor Ensemble with Franky Douglas, Tristan Honsinger and Andrew Cyrille."

"Antonio Borghini: Double bass player and composer.

Born in Milan in 1977, he grows up in Rome where, at the age of ten, begins his musical studies privately and later on at "G.B. Martini" conservatory in Bologna. Based there, he joins in the late 90's the musicians collective "Bassesfere", and starts collaborating with many bands (Cristina Zavalloni "Open quartet", "Orange room", "Headless cat", "Mrafi", "Chant trio" a.o.)

In 2003 begins his long term collaboration with cellist Tristan Honsinger playing in the group "Small Talk". In the years 2004-2006 he plays concerts around Europe with many projects such as "Domino quartet" with Sean Bergin, Gianluca Petrella and Hamid Drake; David Murray trio and quartet; the "Anthony Braxton quartet" and the Butch Morris Orchestra. His sextet "Memorial Barbecue" is invited to the international jazz festival in S.Anna Arresi. From 2007 till 2010 he's the bass player in Mike Patton's project "Mondo Cane". In 2008 he publishes the first record of his music with the group "Malebranche"; the quartet "Eco d'Alberi" is the first italian group playing at the Vision festival in New York.

Through these years he played, toured and recorded with many other musicians such as Han Bennink, Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, John Tchicai, Leo Smith, Cristiano Calcagnile, Edoardo Marraffa, Pasquale Mirra, Vincenzo Vasi, Mirko Sabatini, Fabrizio Puglisi, Francesco Bigoni, Stefano Bollani, Aldo Romano.

In 2009 he moves to Berlin and quickly becomes part of the so-called "echtzeitmusik" scene. Out of countless musical meetings he co-founded "Hook, Line and Sinker", a music theater ensemble with Tristan Honsinger, Axel Dörner and Tobias Delius; "Der Lange Schatten" with Michael Thieke and Håvard Wiik; "Die Hochstapler", with Pierre Borel, Louis Laurain and Hannes Lingens; "Schnell", a bebop-trance trio with Christian Lillinger and Pierre Borel.

He is also regularly playing in Tristan Honsinger's company "Hopscotch"; Alexander Von Schlippenbach quartet; "Quartetto trionfale" with Günter Sommer, Manfred Schoof and Gianluigi Trovesi; the double bass quartet "Sequoia" featuring Klaus Kürvers, Meinrad Kneer and Miles Perkin; the piano trio "Frisk" with Håvard Wiik and Steve Heather and "Parrot's feathers" with Matthias Schubert and Rudi Fischerlehner.Furthermore he plays in various combinations with many others such as Achim Kaufmann, Olaf Rupp, Henrik Walsdorff, Hilary Jeffery, Tony Buck, Rudi Mahall, Almut Kühne, Aki Takase, Sven-Åke Johanson and Chino Suichi."

"Axel Dörner (born 26 April 1964 in Cologne, Germany) is a German jazz musician (trumpet and piano) and composer.

Dörner studied piano in the Dutch town Arnhem (1988-89) and at the Music Academy in Cologne (1989-1996). From 1991 he studied trumpet with Malte Burba, and during his studies he collaborated with trumpeter Bruno Light in the "The Street Fighters Duo". At this time he also joined the ensembles "The Street Fighters Quartet" and "The Street Fighters Double Quartet" together with Matthias Schubert, Bruno Leicht, and Claudio Puntin. In addition the "Axel Dörner Quartet" was initiated (with Frank Gratkowski, Hans Schneider and Martin Blume). With saxophonist Matthias Petzold. he participated on the albums Lifelines and Psalmen Und Lobgesänge.

Dörner has resided in Berlin since 1994, and occurs in the most diverse settings like "The London Jazz Composers Orchestra" and with "Hedros" (together with Mats Gustafsson, Günter Christmann, Barry Guy and others). Since then he has contributed on more than 50 album recordings.

Dörner is distinguished mainly by his versatility. He bouth play the more traditional Bebop, just like he fits in to classic Free Jazz or electronic music. He playd with Otomo Yoshihide at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in 2005. Dörner play both solo concerts and collaborates with his trio "TOOT" (together with Phil Minton and Thomas Lehn) and "Die Anreicherung" with Christian Lillinger, Håvard Wiik and Jan Roder, and in Ken Vandermarks "Territory-Band". Dörner is an integral part of the Berlin scene of experimental new improvisational music. Dörner was given special attention for his interpretation of all compositions by Thelonious Monk, with the pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and his own band "Die Enttäuschung" released on a three CD album (Monks Casino, Complete 2005)."-Wikipedia

"Tobias Delius was born on 15 July 1964 in Oxford, England. He began playing saxophone in 1980 in the German Ruhr region. In 1983/84 he lived in Mexico City where he played in the "Cuarteto Mexicano de Jazz" led by pianist Francixco Téllez.

Delius moved to Amsterdam in 1984 and studied for a short while at the Sweelinck Conservatorium. He quickly became involved with Amsterdam improvisers and dropped his studies to immerse himself in the improvised music scene. In 1990 he was awarded the Podiumprijs from the organisation Stichting Jazz in Nederland. He has worked in Europe and overseas with such musicians as Steve Lacy (October Meeting '91), Louis Moholo's Viva-la-black (South Africa '93), Bill Frisell, Mark Feldman and Trio Clusone (Clusone Jazz '93), Misha Mengelberg ("Pollo de Mare", Angelica '96 in Bologna), Steve Beresford ("Signals for Tea", Vancouver '98), Jeb Bishop, Kent Kessler, Hamid Drake (Chicago 2001) and Ray Anderson (Rotterdam, '01).

Tibias is currently based in Berlin where ihe is an active member of the improvised community performing regularly with Axel Dörner, Christian Lillinger, Clayton Thomas, Liz Albee and many others."