"Christoph Irniger, born 1979, is a Swiss saxophonist, composer and bandleader. According to the Sunday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung he is "undoubtedly one of the greatest talents of his generation." In recent years, Irniger has made a name for himself in a range of line-ups, playing jazz, rock and related musical styles. As a musician from a generation which likes to work on multiple projects in eclectic styles, he leads a range of outfits, all distinct and surprising musically. The Swiss magazine Jazz 'N' More writes: "He comes up with something new each time by leaving the beaten tracks of sound. He doesn't just look briefly left and right; he fights his way into the thicket." An instrumentalist with a firm education, and a composer with an artistic vision, he consistently generates new ideas, realised thanks to a passion for music. German magazine Jazzthetik says: "People who know about jazz will confirm that he is one of the most promising musicians in contemporary Swiss jazz."

Irniger is leader of the band Pilgrim (with Dave Gisler, Stefan Aeby, Raffaele Bossard and Michael Stulz) and the Christoph Irniger Trio (with Raffaele Bossard and Ziv Ravitz), which between them have released four albums so far: two by the Trio, Gowanus Canal (Intakt Records 2013) and Octopus (Intakt Records, 2015) and two from Pilgrim, Mt. Tongariro (Between The Lines, 2011) and Italian Circus Story (Intakt Records, 2014). The latter featured in three best album lists of 2014, including Cadence Magazine (USA). Jazzwise (UK) described them as "a homegrown rising young sax star's quintet!" Irniger's debut recording Chat Noir was released in 2008 on Brambus Records.

Irniger loves jazz, and his playing is strongly rooted in this tradition, influenced by its various exponents. He does not see jazz as representing a particular sound or content, however, but as a way of making music. He says, "to me jazz is that music which always processes the music of its time. It's more about how you play than what you play." He gets ideas from every style of music, and from life itself; in this sense, the main inspirations are his home, Lake Zurich, the mountains, his family, people, travelling (above all New York) and a range of other art-forms. They give him the themes and feed his passion for music, and Irniger places melody above everything else. Even in dense, complex passages, or within free jazz playing, he seeks out the moment, and tries to give the various instruments' melodic lines equal weight. The journalist Peter Haffner writes of his compositions, "the pieces are tone poems, which show that catchy melodies and complex soundscapes need not be mutually exclusive, in fact they each need the other to come to fruition."

His regular visits to Berlin and New York have led to a number of diverse collaborations, including: Nasheet Waits (No Reduce Jaywalkin' (nWog, 2013)), Don Philippe, and the band Counterpoints with Ohad Talmor, Bänz Oester and Vinnie Sperrazza. He has also played with Dave Douglas, Chris Lightcap, Dan Weiss, Nils Wogram, Claudio Puntin, Max Frankl, Stefan Rusconi, Mats Spillmann, Christian Weber, Chris Wiesendanger and Vera Kappeler. He was a member of the Lucerne Jazz Orchestra for seven years and can be heard on four of their recordings. He is also co-leader of the prog-rock band Cowboys from Hell.

From 2000 to 2006 Irniger studied music education at the Zurich Jazz School, and performance at the Lucerne School of Music with Christoph Grab and Nat Su. In the following years he took lessons from Dave Liebman, Mark Turner and Ari Hoenig. He won the Friedel Wald Foundation development award in 2004, received the Borsa di Studio for Siena Jazz University in 2006 and achieved third place in the 2010 ZKB Jazz Prize with the Cowboys from Hell. Between 2015 and 2017 his band Pilgrim were awarded high priority act from Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council. His work has been documented on twenty albums to date, five under his own name. He has played concerts and tours throughout Europe, Asia and the USA.

Christoph Irniger initiated the concert series Jazz im Seefeld and was co-founder of the Jazzwerkstatt Zürich festival. He is also part of the programming team for the Unerhört! Festival and teaches at Zurich University of the Arts and the Musikschule Konservatorium in Zurich."

"Raffaele Bossard (* 1982 in Los Angeles ) is a Swiss jazz musician ( double bass ).

Bossard, who grew up in Zug, had first piano lessons, then switch to electric bass. From 1999 to 2001 he received lessons on the double bass with Bobby Burri at the music school Zug, to then complete the preliminary course at the Jazz School Lucerne, where he studied from 2003 to 2008 with Heiri Känzig, Patrice Moret and Peter Frei. In addition, he took in New York hours with Ron Carter. He leads his own quartet Junction Box, with whom he introduced in 2012 his debut album Adumbration. [1]

Bossard belongs since 2008 to Mats-Up, the band of Matthias Spillmann, and to the band of Joe Haider. Since 2011 he plays in the quartet of Matthias Tschopp and in the collective NoReduce, and since 2013 he belongs to Christoph Irniger's Pilgrim, with whom he also plays in the trio. He can also be heard on albums by Jochen Baldes, Dominic Egli, Gregor Frei, Matthias Tschopp, the Sonar Ensemble and the Lucerne Jazz Orchestra. He also worked with Feya Faku, Ohad Talmor, Jeff Davis, Joey Baron, Nasheet Waits, Ziv Ravitz, Dave Douglas, Nils Wogram, Nat Su, Andy Scherrer, Glenn Ferris, Bert Joris, Johannes Enders, Sandy Patton, Claus Reichstaller, Roberto Bossard, Christian Münchinger, Chris Wiesendanger, Elmar Frey, Claudio Puntin, Domenic Landolf, Jean Paul Brodbeck and VEIN.

Bossard was the winner of the 2013 Moods Blues and Jazz Award with Mats-Up; In the following year he received the ZKB Jazzpreis with the Matthias Tschopp Quartet. With the band of Florian Egli and Gileno Santana he was in the same year winner in Transnational Be-Jazz."

"Ziv was born in Beer-Sheva, Israel to a family of musicians, he was drawn to music at an early age, playing the guitar, keyboard and drum. When he was 9 years old he started focusing on drums and by the age of 13 begun his professional career, playing the drums at various clubs in Beer-Sheva and Tel Aviv and acquiring experience in a variety of musical styles, such as Jazz, rock and avant-garde. In 1999 Ziv was chosen as a reserved drummer for guest performers from Europe and the United States at the Camelot Jazz Club in Tel Aviv. Ziv moved to the US in the summer of 2000 to expand his musical experience and to grow as a Jazz composer. Since then he has been performing and recording with numerous ensembles in the Boston area, both as a freelancer and as an artist using his own compositions, which reflect his individual and unique sound. Ziv had the opportunity to perform with musicians such as Hal Crook, Greg Hopkins, Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Eugene Friesen, Mick Goodrick, Eli Dejibri, James Genus, George Garzone, Ben Monder, Avishai Cohen and more. In the winter of 2003, Ziv has become an official recording artist of Huber Music Management and Recording label of Cologne, Germany. In June 2003 Ziv won the Zildjian Scholarship Award. Since then Ziv had toured extensively all across Europe with various groups such as TAQ, Minsarah, Sin, Nicolas Simon Group, Iasi Romanian Philharmonic Orchestra. At Dec 2004 Ziv graduated from Berklee School of Music with a Jazz Composition Degree. Ziv is currently sign to ENJA as recording artist."

"The music of Brooklyn-based saxophonist and composer, Loren Stillman, has found acclaimed reviews in such publications as The New York Times, Downbeat Magazine, Jazziz, Jazz Times, and National Public Radio, marking him as an innovative voice of modern jazz. With his training stemming from Lee Konitz and David Liebman to Harvey Pittel, Stillman has performed, recorded, and educated throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Alongside an impressive record of performances, recordings, and master-classes with his own ensembles, Stillman has performed and recorded alongside The Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra, Paul Motian Trio 2000+2, Carla Bley, John Abercrombie, Michael Formanek: Ensemble Kolassus, Ralph Alessi, Andy Milne's DAPP Theory, Michele Rosewoman Quintessence, Tyshawn Sorey Oblique, Brad Shepik, Vic Juris and The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

An early start to his musical career found Stillman as recipient of two Outstanding Performance Awards (1996 &1998) and the Rising Star Jazz Artist Award (2004) from Down Beat Magazine. Stillman attended Manhattan School of Music (1998) and The New School (2002) on full music scholarship, and was a semifinalist in the 2002 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition. In 2005, Stillman received the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming and the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award. Stillman's original recordings, Going Public (Fresh Sound 2013), Winter Fruits (Pirouet 2008), It Could Be Anything (Fresh Sound, 2005), The Brothers' Breakfast (Steeplechase, 2006), and Blind Date (Pirouet, 2006), received critical acclaim from The New York Times, New Yorker and four star recognition in BBC Jazz Review, Jazz Man Magazine and Downbeat Magazine. Stillman has been featured on WKCR, Weekend America Public Broadcasting, and LIU Radio programming. Stillman is a Vandoren and Conn-Selmer artist."

"Nils Wogram (born 1972 in Braunschweig, Germany) started playing the trombone at the age of 15. He started classical and jazz trombone simultaneously. He was a member in the national german youth big band, paricipated in classical competitions and formed his own bands at the age of 16. From 1992 to 1994 he studied in New York City and continiued at Cologne university until 1999 when he graduated. Since then Nils has relased 23 albums as a bandleader.

Nils Wogram counts as one of the most important jazz musicians in europe. He appears on many important festivals and tours worldwide with his own bands and as a featured soloist. He is mainly known for his highly virtuous trombone playing, his very original compositions and as a band leader of long-term working bands with a unique ensemble sound. In 2010 he started his own record label nwog-records on which he releases his albums. Nils Wogram`s bands play exclusively his own music and other ensembles commission pieces by him.

Nils Wogram`s music is highly rooted in the jazz tradition. Nevertheless he tries to find new ways in expanding this language by using chordal, formal, meldodic and rhythmic material originally coming from other musical genres than jazz. Nils is a big fan of real bands with a unique ensemble sound. Most of his ensembles exist since a long time (e.g. Root 70 since the year 2000). He believes that the best music in history was played by working bands."