"Machinefabriek is the alias of Rutger Zuydervelt. Rutger's music combines elements of ambient, noise, minimalism, drone, field recordings and electro-acoustic experiments. His pieces can be heard as an attempt to create sonic environments for the listener to dwell in. Finding tension in texture, tone and timing, the result can be very minimalistic at first glance, but reveals itself upon closer listening. The devil is in the details.

Rutger was born in 1978 in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands) and now resides in Rotterdam. He started recording as Machinefabriek in 2004. After a series of self released cd-rs, his official debut Marijn was issued in 2006, with great critical acclaim. Since than, a solid stream of music was released on labels such as Type, Important, Home Normal, 12K, Entr'acte, Dekorder, Miasmah, Consouling Sounds, Experimedia and Staalplaat. He performed all over the globe, from Canada to Israel and from Russia to Japan.

Rutger collaborated (on record and/or live) with numerous artists, such as Steinbrüchel, Jaap Blonk, Aaron Martin, Peter Broderick, Frans de Waard, Mats Gustafsson, Steve Roden, Gareth Davis, Stephen Vitiello, Michel Banabila, Dirk Serries and Dead Neanderthals, amongst many others.

He frequently works with film makers, like Makino Takashi, Mike Hoolboom, John Price, Paul Clipson and Chris Teerink, for whom he composed a soundtrack for his documentary about Sol LeWitt. Rutger also recorded the music for the Canadian drama The Cold and the Quiet from 2014. Furthermore, his music was used in Edward Burtynsky's Watermark, the drama Stone (with Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton) and Josh Fox' influential Gasland and Gasland Part II documentaries. Besides films, Rutger also composes music for dance pieces, like Alix Eynaudi and Kris Verdonck's EXIT (premiéred at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Alexander Whitley's The Measures Taken (for the Royal Opera in London) and Beheld (for Candoco Dance Company), and multiple pieces by Spanish/Dutch choreographer Iván Pérez. Then there's Rutgers installation work, in which the dialogue with the environment plays an important role. He did projects for Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NAi (Dutch Architecture Institute), the new Armando Museum MOA, Sounds Like Audio Art in Saskatoon (Canada), the Into the Great Wide Open Festival, Netwerk in Aalst (Belgium) and children's museum Villa Zebra in Rotterdam."

Berlinde Deman is born in 1982. She plays bass tuba, piano and euphonium. Her influences are Goran Bregovic, Maceo Parker, Marcus Miller,... She plays as well in Va Fan Fahre, Brassafrik and Valse Teefjes. She has been a member of the groups Flat Earth Society, Grand Picture Palace, and Va Fan Fahre.

"Mara Winter has pursued a unique specialization in the performance of early transverse flutes of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Her involvement in experimental, improvisational and electronic music genres has given her a captivating perspective on the interpretation of early western art music. On the other hand, her training as a historical flautist has provided a technical basis for her own compositions, which meditate on the myriad sound possibilities of period instruments set within the framework of contemporary space.

She directs her ensemble Phaedrus, co-directs the ensemble Moirai and is a member of Rumorum, all based in Basel, Switzerland. She has performed and recorded with internationally recognized early music ensembles including Ensemble Leones, Ensemble Peregrina, J.S. Bach-Stiftung, La Scintilla (Zurich Opera), Il Gusto Barocco, Les Passions de L'Ame, Capriccio Barockorchester, Pacific Musicworks and others.

Mara Winter began her studies in Seattle, WA, USA at Cornish College of the Arts with Baroque flutist Janet See. In 2018 she completed a Master's degree, with distinction, in Medieval and Renaissance traverso at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. In 2020 she will graduate from the Schola Cantorum with a Specialized Master's degree focusing exclusively on Renaissance traverso. Her main teachers at the Schola have been Johanna Bartz, Norbert Rodenkirchen, Crawford Young, Marc Lewon, Baptiste Romain and Kate Dineen.

In March 2020, Mara co-founded the record label Discreet Editions together with composer and performer Clara de Asís. It fuses the realm of ancient music to that of contemporary, experimental composition through collaborations, commissions, structured improvisation and other, yet-to-be-named performance practices."

Colin Webster is an improvising saxophonist based in London. He is a frequent collaborator with Mark Holub, Graham Dunning, Andrew Lisle, John Dikeman, &c.

"Thijs Troch is a Belgian piano player, mainly active in improvised music. He plays in bands such as: Keenroh, Jukwaa, Kabas, Glin Graktion, Hypochristmutreefuzz, Northern Escorts, Residuum Free Unit, Bulliphat, &c."

"Frans de Waard (1965) has been producing music since 1984. First as Kapotte Muziek, but throughout the years, he also worked as Beequeen (with Freek Kinkelaar), Goem (with Roel Meelkop & Peter Duimelinks, both of whom are also a member of Kapotte Muziek these days), Zebra (with Roel Meelkop) and such solo projects as Freiband, Shifts as well as his own name. He has worked for Staalplaat (1992-2003) and since 1986 as a reviewer for his own publication Vital, now only Vital Weekly, an online music magazine, which has been the online source for underground music since 1995, and which celebrated it's 1000th issue in 2015. In February 2007 he played various solo concerts as Goem|FDW in Japan, as part of a package tour with Pan Sonic. Frans de Waard also likes to play sets of improvised music with whoever is available, just as he did with people like Guiseppe Ielasi, Jaap Blonk, Howard Stelzer, Roel Meelkop, Andrew Liles, Radboud Mens and the mayor of his home city Nijmegen. In 2008 film maker Harrie Timmermans made a small documentary about his work with Kapotte Muziek under the title 'What You See Is What You Hear'. He has given workshops and lectures at various places, such as Extrapool, the art academy of Maastricht en 's-Hertogenbosch, the Glinka Conservatorium in Moscow and Lithuania. With Scott Foust he formed the duo The Tobacconists in 2009, with Wouter Jaspers the duo Ezdanitoff in 2010, with Jos Smolders he started playing as WaSm in 2015 and in 2016 a new duo With Sindre Bjerga as Tech Riders. In 2012 he added Modelbau to his long list of names, this time for all things lo-fi and noise based.

In 2016 Timeless in France published his first book, an autobiography of life in Staalplaat called 'This Is Supposed To Be A Record Label'.

Frans de Waard has played concerts in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, UK, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Canada, Japan, United States, Russia and Italy."

Graham Dunning: "Artist, musician and producer using turntables and electronics across experimental music, techno and improv. Most well known for the "Mechanical Techno" live set, also plays in various other collaborations, DJs, and presents an NTS radio show.

Graham Dunning is self-taught as an artist and musician having studied neither discipline academically. His live work explores sound as texture, timbre and something tactile, drawing on bedroom production, tinkering and recycling found objects. He also creates visual work, video and installations drawing on these themes.

Much of the work evolves through experimentation with different processes: considering the methods by which sounds become music; process as a continuum encompassing both improvisational and procedural methods; and testing analogous processes across different media.

Graham has performed solo and in ensembles across the UK, Europe and Canada, and exhibited in the UK, Europe, New Zealand and USA. He teaches Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre in London and also gives various independent workshops. He has released through Entr'acte, Seagrave, Tombed Visions and more."-Electronic Music Online

Jeremy Young, aka Szilárd, is an electronic artist known for the groups [The] Slowest Runner [In All The World], Sontag Shogun, and his work with Jean D. L.

"Drummer René Aquarius lives in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and has an "unhealthy obsession for grindcore, soundtracks and experimental music." He is best know for his work in Dead Neanderthals and Celestial Bodies."

"Stephen Cornford is an audio-visual artist working between installation and performance. His practice is concerned with reconfiguring consumer electronics as expressive and reflective devices. He studied at The Slade School of Fine Art and Dartington College of Arts and is currently a PhD candidate at Winchester School of Art with Jussi Parikka and Ian Dawson.

Stephen has had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Berlin, Brighton, Bergen, Ljubljana & London and his work has been included in group exhibtions at the ZKM Center for Art & Media, Karlsruhe; ICC, Tokyo; Haus der Electronische Kunst, Basel; Sigma Foundation, Venice and at Bienalles in Lodz and Poznan.

He is co-director the Audiograft Festival in Oxford and the Consumer Waste record label and is a founder member of Bristol Experimental and Expanded Film.

His audio work has been published by Rumpsti Pumsti, VLZprodukt, Senufo Editions, MoTA, Winds Measure, 3leaves, Vitrine, Mantile and Accidie and he has collaborated with Ben Gwilliam, Patrick Farmer, Daniel Bennett and Samuel Rodgers among others."

Phil Maguire: "I'm an experimental musician/improviser/sound artist making reductive music that explores emptiness and malfunction. Simplicity is at the core of my work. I use cheap electronics, open source software, synthesis, and obsolete audio equipment to create sparse sonic environments for personal reflection. These are often very quiet; very loud; loud made quiet; quiet made loud.

This work extends into composed instrumental music, via short text scores and instructions. These works have been performed by the likes of Garth Knox, Juice Vocal Ensemble, and Mark Sanders.

I improvise with cheap electronics, using the same emptiness to create charged interactions with other musicians and audiences. I perform solo, and in groups, with musicians including Phil Durrant, Eleanor Cully, and James L. Malone.

I run verz, a label and series presenting quiet music and sound art."

"Since his first releases in the early 80s, uncompromising Belgian artist Dirk Serries has garnered respect from and invitations to collaborate with recognised musicians like Steven Wilson, Steve Von Till, Justin Broadrick, Cult Of Luna and Alan Sparhawk of Low. He has been commisioned to write works for Dutch national television broadcaster VPRO, the Antwerp Zoo as well as architectural festival Biënnale Rotterdam and worked on stage with the Holland Symfonia orchestra. His discography encompasses stylistically diverse releases on labels like Relapse, Projekt, Conspiracy as well as his current creative partner Tonefloat, an outfit with years of experience in vinyl editions for acts like Porcupine Tree, Robert Fripp, Theo Travis and Anja Garbarek. Over the past thirty years, he has toured extensively through Europe and the USA and performed at some of experimental music's major venues and concert spaces, as headliner or in support of Low, Mono, My Bloody Valentine, Jesu and others.

Dirk Serries never shied away from collaborations with Justin Broadrick, Steve Roach, Sam Rosenthal, Alio Die, Theo Travis, David Lee Myers, Asmus Tietchens, Stratosphere, Serge Devadder, Willem Tanke or under seperate entities like The Sleep Of Reason (with Jon Attwood), Continuum (with Steven Wilson), Principle Of Silence (with Joris De Backer), The Eightfold Model (with Michael Beckett), Akhet (with Marc Verhaeghen, Paul Van Den Berg), 3 Seconds Of Air (with Martina Verhoeven, Paul Van Den Berg) and The Black Fire (with Robert MacManus).

After bringing his projects vidnaObmana (1984-2005) and Fear Falls Burning (2005-2012) to a satisfying conclusion, Serries no longer considers it necessary to hide behind alter egos. Confident enough to operate under his own name, he is continuing his ongoing search for uncharted territory while keeping in mind the essence which made him want to work with sound in the first place. Fascinated by the power of purity, he has built a reputation for building a personal galaxy of harmony and dissonance through dense caleidoscopes of slowly unfolding motives. His upcoming second microphonics-album is a further refinement of this approach. Eschewing stereotypical genre exercises, Serries refuses to be labeled as a guitarist, weilding his instrument in a way which never denies its original tonal colours while bringing out the unique intimacy of his music.

Released in 2008, Serries's debut studio album under his own name was all about analog warmth and natural acoustics. For his second full-length and in a bid of creating the perfect sonic space, he has now taken on the challenge of engaging in a dialogue with digital processing. Lyricaly titled 'microphonics xxi - xxv - mounting among the the wings, there's a light in vein. the burden of hope across thousands of rivers', the album was released to critical acclaim in March 2013 on renowned Dutch label Tonefloat as a CD and double 10″ vinyl.

The sobriety of his studio work is mirrored by Serries's philosophy to performing live, based on the concept that music should be heard, not seen. Focussed like a monk immersed in prayer, he is performing his music almost in complete darkness and entirely in real-time, making use of both electric amplification and the natural resonance of the room and taking the particular characteristics of each venue into consideration. This way, not a single gig sounds the same as the night before.

While writing the follow-up to his second microphonics solo album, his ongoing fascination for jazz for more than 15 years solidified in 2011 when he was invited by improv and jazz musicians Kristoffer Lo and Tomas Järmyr to form YODOK III. Recording their debut album, completely performed real-time, at the legendary Athletic Sound Studio in Halden (Norway), brought projects in a rapid stream and on the right track. Teaming up with both musicians, in their trio format and with Tomas Järmyr on drums as duo THE VOID OF EXPANSION, Serries collaborates as well with Belgian jazzdrummer Teun Verbruggen as ART OF COSMIC MUSINGS and goes into a duel with Dead Neanderthals, Cactus Truck's American sax player John Dikeman and Dutch drummer Onno Govaert, UK saxophonist Colin Websters, UK drummers Andrew Lisle and Steve Noble. Born was Tonefloat's New Wave Of Jazz and the future foresees no boundaries, 30 years and onwards."

"Gareth Davis studied with Antony Pay and Roger Heaton in London and then with Dutch Bass Clarinet virtuoso, Harry Sparnaay in Amsterdam. He was invited by the French cellist Alain Meunier, to attend the prestigious Accademia Chigiana di Siena on a Scholarship and study chamber music with Yuri Bashmit, Katia Labeque, Tchaikovsky Prize winner Mario Brunello and the Italian composer, Luciano Berio.

Since his debut, at the age of 18, at London's Wigmore Hall, Gareth has gone on to play throughout Europe, North America and Asia. He has played under conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Sir Simon Rattle, Diego Masson, Gregory Rose and Roger Norington with orchestras and ensembles including the Philarmonia, Sinfonietta, ECO, Asko, Netherlands Radio Orchestra and Sinfonia 21. He also performed with the Neue Vocalsolisten, Sinfonietta and JACK Quartet, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, guitarist Elliot Sharp, experimental noise band Nadja and electronic artists Scanner and Machinefabriek.

Gareth has been strongly involved in New Music having had pieces written for him by many composers such as, Salvatore Sciarrino, Jonathan Harvey, Toshio Hosokawa, Gavin Bryars, Peter Eotvos and Misato Mochizuki. He has worked extensively with the Hilliard Ensemble's countertenor David James, soprano Sarah Leonard, harpsichord virtuoso Jane Chapman, Heinz Holliger, Sine Nomine, Kreutzer Quartet the Rossetti Quartet and Xenakis Prize winning contra bassist, Corrado Canonnici.

Gareth has performed at many prestigious festivals including the Bienalle di Venezia, Prague Spring, Amsterdam, Ars, Vienna, Stockholm, Santa Fe, World Music Days and Salzburg. He has performed both contemporary and traditional repertoire on modern and period instruments and on folk instruments including the Romanian Taragota and Turkish Sol. In 2001 Gareth formed the duo 'muta' with accordian. In only a year nearly 40 works have been commissioned by composers including Magnus Lindburg, Rebecca Saunderds and Jo Kondo.

Gareth is currently exploring the potential of interactive visual media to expand the interpretation of existing twentieth century repertoire and open new theatrical possibilities for the performance of twenty-first century music."

"Tom Ward is a musician, composer and computer programmer from Yorkshire, currently based in London. His primary instrument is the saxophone, but in recent years he has also been involved in a variety of projects playing clarinets and flute. Tom leads the Madwort Saxophone Quartet, formed to play his compositions with three other exciting young saxophonists: Chris Williams (Led Bib, Let Spin); Cath Roberts (Sloth Racket, LUME) and Andrew Woolf (Button Band, Alvorado). Their recent debut album "Live at Hundred Years Gallery" on Efpi Records received a four-star review from John Fordham in the Guardian. Tom also explores his compositions with other ensembles, most recently Madwort's Menagerie - a sextet comprising flute, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone, cello and double-bass.

Tom has a strong interest in freely improvised music. His collaborative group Ma/ti/om featuring Swedish percussionist Matilda Rolfsson and double bassist Tim Fairhall released their first album "Ashes" on Raw Tonk Records in 2016. They subsequently toured the UK and Scandinavian early 2017, leading to their second Raw Tonk release "Live in London" in Oct 2017. He is also establishing a working duo partnership with Manchester-based keyboard player Adam Fairhall, which will tour in September 2018. Tom is also part of the collaboration that runs BRÅK, a regular free improv night in a South London homebrew shop.

Tom is a regular member of anarchic London big band Overground Collective, as well as performing across Europe, Canada and the US with Beats & Pieces Big Band, Cath Robert's Favourite Animals, Article XI, the London Jazz Orchestra and Yazz Ahmed's Family Hafla. He was a member of the Peter Whittingham award-winning ensemble Porpoise Corpus, Combustible Alarms Big Band and Quadraceratops."

"Shira Legmann [born 1981 in Aachen, Germany] is a concert pianist with a wide repertoire Ð from Baroque to contemporary music Ð and an interdisciplinary artist who creates new compositions and soundtracks based on graphic novels, animation and video art.

In recent years, Shira has performed piano recitals that span Bach's Goldberg Variations, Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards, Gyšrgy Ligeti's keyboard music, Morton FeldmanÕs late repertoire and Giacinto Scelsi's piano music, among others.

Shira performs frequently as a soloist in Israel, Europe and the U.S. Some of the concert halls she has recently performed in include MusŽe de la Chasse et de la Nature and La Fondation Suisse in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, An Evening with Steinway series, the Tel Aviv and Haifa Museum of Arts and more.

Alongside her activity as a soloist, Shira has benn serving for the last four years as co-artistic director and active member of Musica Nova, a unique collective comprised of musicians and sound artists dedicated to contemporary and experimental music. She was also invited to perform as a guest pianist with the Israel Contemporary Players ensemble, conducted by Ilan Volkov and Zsolt Nagy and with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, with conductor Ariel Zuckermann.

In addition to concert performances, Shira has presented original compositions at the Tectonics Music Festival in Tel Aviv, the fifth Biennale for Drawing in Jerusalem, and will be presenting a new work at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in June 2018 together with Musica Nova.

Shira collaborates with artists from the fields of plastic art, dance and design. Notable among these are projects with British photographer and video artist Katerina Jebb for Comme de Garcons and Victoria Beckham fashion brands; video and plastic artist Hilla Ben-Ari, painters Adi Kaplan and Shahar Carmel, choreographer Anat Shamgar, and more.

Shira holds an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass., and a Masters from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at the Tel Aviv University, where she graduated with honors. Shira studied under the guidance of pianists Alexander Korsantia, Natasha Tadson and Michael Bugoslavsky."

"Berlin-based composer-performer Johnny Chang engages in extended explorations surrounding the relationships of sound/silence and the in-between areas of improvisation, composition, performance and listening. Current collaborations/projects include: Antoine Beuger, Alessandro Bossetti, Lucio Capece, Olivier Di Placido, Jürg Frey, Chris Heenan, Christian Kesten, Annette Krebs, Luke Munn, Koen Nutters, Michael Pisaro, Derek Shirley."

Fredrik Rasten, guitarist / improviser / composer "I am a Norwegian guitarist (b. 1988) working in the field of experimental music, both improvised and composed. My main focuses are exploring and utilizing the acoustic possibilities of the steel string guitar, motivated by a fascination for the almost tactile experiences of acoustic phenomena. The last months I have been working extensively with intonation, with an extended concept of consonance as a point of departure, both in solo work and in duos with trumpeter Torstein Lavik Larsen and bass player Jonathan Heilbron. I have also had the lucky opportunity to take lessons in this field with composer and violist Catherine Lamb.

Other music that I am inspired by includes wandelweiser music, traditional british folk and early music."

"Fredrik Rasten works with acoustic guitar and in exploring the possibilities for putting this instrument in new musical contexts. With extensive use of preparations and different non-tempered tunings, he creates warm sounds in gradual development. He also includes subtle use of the voice to make interfering thick timbres and tonalities in combination with the guitar. A goal for the music is to open a room for details that invites the listener inside the musical material in an active and exploring way.

He is also playing composed music, especially related to quiet / Wandelweiser music and Just Intonation music, and has performed pieces by Johan Lindvall, Antoine Beuger and Catherine Lamb."

Otto Kokke is a Norwegian saxophonist from Nijmegen, The Netherlands, who also uses the alias Veni Om, and is known for groups Dead Neanderthals, DNMF, Fantoom, Krishna, and Mannheim.

"Anne Bakker (1989) is a violin player who is active in a wide range of musical genres. Recently she has been touring Brazil, Europe and Dubai, as a member of the acoustic trio of former Iron Maiden vocalist Blaze Bayley. Anne is also a member of the Goskel Yilmaz Ensemble, with whom she plays Turkish oriented music. They released 2 albums and toured in the Netherlands and Indonesia in collaboration with the Internationaal Danstheater. With Toby, Anne toured in Europe, Australia, the USA and Canada.

Anne is also active writing songs. She performs her songs either with her duo Eira, or on her own, accompanying herself on viola or guitar. As a vocalist, Anne recorded with producers such as Kalima and Quibus.

Anne started music lessons at the age of 6. She studied violin (jazz & improvised music) in the conservatories of Rotterdam and Arnhem and graduated in 2011. At the moment Anne is studying vocals (master) at Codarts, Rotterdam.

Anne gained much experience in the Dutch theatre scene, touring with theatre groups such as John Buijsman, Kalterflug and Theatergroep DNA. As a violin player, she worked with many artists, such as Kristoffer Gildenlow, Machinefabriek, Bob Zimmerman, Celine Cairo, Baba Zula, Crescent Double Quartet, Kevin Toma and many others."

Classically trained musician Aaron Martin began playing music at age 11, switching between guitar and drums. In high school, he switched to cello, and at college at Washburn University he graduated with a double-major in music cello performance and English writing. He now resides in Topeka, Kansas and performs on Cello, guitar, ukulele, tambourine, banjo, mandolin, electric chord organ, recorder, slide whistle, saw and glockenspiel.

"Jean DL develops a universe at once intimistic and noisy, made of hazy soundscape. Jean D.L. has worked in solo but has also collaborated with the likes of S. Biset, B. Drugmand (aka Impostor), Sébastien Karkoszka, Zbigniew Karkowski, Mauro A. Pawlowski & Teun Verbruggen (Stahlmus Delegation), Antoine Boute, Othin Spake, Soumonces!, Noir, Jozef Van Wissem, Justice Yeldham, Jean-Philippe De Gheest"

"Joana Gama (Braga, 1983) is a pianist and a researcher. She was awarded the first prize at the Young Musicians Awards (PT), in 2008. Her performing activity unfolds in solo concerts and collaborations with different Portuguese groups. She was a student at Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian (Braga, Royal Academy of Music (London) and Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. In 2010, she finished a Masters in Piano Performance, in the class of Antonio Rosado, at the University of Évora, where she recently finished her thesis entitled "Performance studies on Portuguese contemporary music for piano: the particular case of evocative music of elements of the Portuguese culture", with a scholarship by FCT. As a pianist and performer, in the last few years, she has been involved in projects that associate music with dance, theatre, cinema and photography. QUEST, piano and electronics project shared with Luís Fernandes was released by Shhpuma and considered one of the best albums of 2014 by diverse Portuguese critics. During 2016, with the support of Antena 2, Joana is dedicated to SATIE.150 - a celebration in the shape of an umbrella, a series of concerts and events around Portugal that celebrate the 150th anniversary of the french composer Erik Satie. In this context she coordinated a special edition of the piano score "Embryons desséchés" by Erik Satie (Pianola Editores), lectured in several Portuguese schools and made an uninterrupted fifteen hours performance of the work "Vexations" in the Festival Jardins Efémeros in Viseu. She is preparing the launch of HARMONIES - an authorial project that departs from the music of Erik Satie - shared with Luis Fernandes (electronics) and Ricardo Jacinto (cello and electronics). (November, 2016)"

"Nina Hitz was born in Switzerland and is currently living in The Netherlands. She finished her graduate studies in Baroque cello at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

A very active, questing spirit who constantly seeks the unknown in life and in music, in addition to baroque music, Hitz is active with experimental music, improvisation and theatrical performances.

She is a member of Belfontis, with fortepiano player Kaoru Iwamura. The trio specialises in early romantic music. She also performs with Traces and Resonances, with dancer Sato Endo, and Jargon (led byMaurice Horsthuis).

She has played in theater- and dance productions of Orkater, Olivier Provily, Het Barre Land, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, les Ballets C de la B, Opera2Day and piano quintet SOUNDS."

"Romke Kleefstra is a musician/sound artist/experimental guitarist and ornithologist from the Netherlands. Currently he is a member of Piiptsjilling, Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra, The Alvaret Ensemble and Tsjinlûd.

Romke Kleefstra was born on 28 July 1972 in Akkrum, Netherlands. He started as a song writing singer and guitarist in 1992 when he formed his first band Shatterhole. Kleefstra didn't study music; he's a self-taught guitarist, at early age influenced by bands like The Ex and Sonic Youth.

From 1992 up to 2007 Kleefstra was singer and songwriter in the indie bands Shatterhole (1992-1995), Seascape Painters (1995-2000) and Polaroyd (2003-2007). In 2008 Kleefstra formed Piiptsjilling with his brother Jan Kleefstra (poet), Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and Mariska Baars (Soccer Committee). Since then he's been in numerous collaborations and projects with his brother, in which his music contains elements of ambient, post-rock, minimalism, drone, modern classical music up to free impro jazz. Recurrent collaborations differ in style and sound, from the filmic soundscapes of Piiptsjilling, to the pitch black ambient of Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra, to the free impro with influences of modern classical music of The Alvaret Ensemble. After releasing Piiptsjilling's first album in 2008 a solid stream of CD's, LP's, DVD's and cassettes followed on labels like Experimedia, Hybernate, Home Normal, Spekk, Low Point, Monotype, Denovali, Midira and Tombed Visions.

As a member of Piiptsjilling Kleefstra co-initiated the film and music project Seeljocht for the Into The Great Wide Open festival in 2011 (Vlieland, Netherlands), with Piiptsjilling, Peter and Heather Broderick, Nils Frahm and Greg Haines. It was succeeded by the half-Icelandic project Skeylja for the Oerol festival 2012 (with The Alvaret Ensemble and Kira Kira, Eríkur Ólafsson, Ingi Erlendsson and Borgar Magnason). In 2015 the Frisian collective Tsjinlûd toured the Netherlands with Japanese film artists of the +Project from Tokyo. In 2016 the Kleefstra's did the same with a similar project called LJERKE, including the Norwegian musicians Alexander Rishaug, Hilde Marie Holsen and Michael Duch.

All studio-albums and live performances are based on free impro / instant composing. Live performances with Piiptsjilling, Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra and The Alvaret Ensemble took Kleefstra to Japan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Iceland and Britain.

Within the frequently returning collaborations and live Kleefstra collaborated with many artists, among whom Anne-Chris Bakker, Peter Broderick, Gareth Davis, Nils Frahm, Joana Guerra, Greg Haines, Will Long, Sytze Pruiksma, Alexander Rishaug, Danny Saul, Olga Wojciechowska and Rutger Zuydervelt. Visual artists that worked together in projects with Kleefstra are 33one3rd, Haraldur Karlsson, Kei Shichiri, Marco Douma, Rei Hayama, Sabine Bürger, Shinkan Tamaki and Takashi Makino.

Kleefstra is an autodidact ornithologist, since 1998 working as field assistant and project coordinator for Sovon (Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology). Kleefstra is also chief editor of the Dutch ornithological magazine Limosa. He publishes regularly articles and short notes with a wide variety of subjects, mainly in Dutch and sometimes in international journals for ornithology. The Wadden Sea, bird populations in wetlands, population dynamic, birds on roosts, species targeted research in herons, geese, birds of prey, waders, gulls, terns and owls have his special interest.

Romke Kleefstra resides in a small township in the Frisian countryside."

"Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila releases music since 1983 and has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. He worked / performed in The Netherlands, Poland, Lebanon, UK, South Africa, Russia, Japan, Spain, China, USA and Belgium. Banabila is especially keen on mixing disciplines and music styles, using elements and influences from jazz, electronic music, classical and world music. Therefore there is no particular genre to categorize Banabila's music. In addition to acoustic instrumentation, Banabila uses electronics, field recordings, and snippets from radio, tv and internet. He collaborated with different types of artists like Anton Goudsmit, Erkan Oğur, Hanyo van Oosterom, Holger Czukay, Joshua Samson, Machinefabriek, Mete Erker, Oene van Geel, Radboud Mens, Salar Asid, Sandhya Sanjana, Scanner, Yaşar Saka , Eric Vloeimans, and Zenial, among others.

Besides making albums and musical scores, Banabila works with theatre, dance and visual art on more conceptual artistic projects. He builds a database with samples; uses the city environment as a recording studio, collects fragments of spoken texts, which he composes into soundscapes, audio/visual installations and performances. Using recordings of speech in several languages Banabila experiments with the tonality of words and the "sound system" of languages. Banabila worked on various projects with video artists Geert Mul, Olga Mink, and photographer Gerco de Ruijter. With Geert Mul he has an audiovisual set, Big Data Poetry, which they performed live in venues like The Barbican (London) during the Logan Symposium 2014, Yukunkun (Beirut) during the Global Week For Syria 2014, and TENT (Rotterdam) during Sound Spectrums 2012. With Olga Mink he performed at the LUX Festival (Sevilla), the VAD Festival (Girona) and the State Of The Image Festival (Arnhem) in 2006. For Gerco de Ruijter he did sound design for several stop-frame animations, like the critically acclaimed Crops, shown in the Hirhshorn Museum (2013 / Washington DC) and Ringdijk at Panorama Mesdag (2016 / The Hague)"

"Giovanni Di Domenico, pianist, performer, composer, was born in Rome on the 20th July 1977, a significantly tempestuous period in socio-political terms, featuring hostile polarizations and an ostensive paramilitarism, mutinous ideological confrontations and bloody terrorist attacks, rendered infamous in the description 'Years of Lead'. In that particularly caustic summer, the so-called 'Movement of 1977', non-aligned, without any ties to the Parliament and non-violent, broke into the scene of prevalent conspiracy-steeped paranoia condemning the repressive, discriminatory and authoritarian tendencies of the Italian State and demanding equality for minorities and further civil rights. The coinciding liberalization of the media market, putting an end to RAI's monopoly, further defined this period as the prime moment for pirate radio, with the consequence of a libertarian fragmentation of youth culture, epitomised by punk.

One could argue that Giovanni, self-taught until the age of 24, inherited - in philosophy, politics and artistically - the most benign and affirmative traits of that period, diversifying his action in the context of a recently unified Europe, promoting improbable connections, exploring varied geographies, comfortably manoeuvring aesthetical fringes and making a commitment to live performance at its most liberating and engaging. Surprisingly, the path that lead him to that point had an unexpected detour: following his father's consecutive assignments as a civil engineer he actually lived out his first decade in Africa - until he was five in Libya, from then until his eight anniversary in the Cameroons and until ten in Algeria. His far off native country was not synonymous with civil unrest as much as with opera, whose arias he would memorize with his siblings in order to practice the language and provide some family entertainment. The condition of expatriate had a strong influence in his education - he clearly remembers the calls of the muezzin, the sound of exotic musical instruments in local markets, the ritualistic expression music took in the streets of Yaoundé, or the songs he heard from his nanny in the Cameroons.

When he finally enrolled in music school - majoring in 'jazz piano'- he further built on an encyclopedic technique; rhythm, harmony and tone are informed by non-western traditions yet equally sensitive to Debussy's "Préludes", Luciano Berio's "Sequenzas", to the 'ambi-ideation' heard in Borah Bergman's Soul Note recordings, Cecil Taylor's polissemic density, Paul Bley's bruised transparency and of course, the most radical manifestations stemming from the underworld of pop music, invariably tied together by his own original praxis. A distinction - one would call it generational - he shares with many of the musicians he has crossed paths with recently, artists as different as Chris Corsano, Jim O'Rourke, Akira Sakata, Tetuzi Akiyama, Okkyung Lee, Balasz Pandi, Nate Wooley, Yan Jun, John Edwards, Darin Gray, Roger Turner, Steve Noble, DJ Sniff, Terrie Ex, David Maranha, Manuel Mota, Arve Henriksen, Norberto Lobo, Peter Jacquemyn, Alexandra Grimal, John Duncan, Tony Allen, Rafael Toral or Toshimaru Nakamura. Di Domenico has founded his own label, Silent Water, home of an eclectic and occasionally unclassifiable production. He lives in Brussels."