"Gerry Hemingway has led a number of quartet and quintets since the mid 1980's. In addition he has been a member of a wide array of long standing collaborative groups including Brew with Reggie Workman and Miya Masaoka, the GRH trio with Georg Graewe and Ernst Reijseger, the WHO trio with Michel Wintsch and Bänz Oester, as well as numerous duo projects with Thomas Lehn, John Butcher, Ellery Eskelin, Marilyn Crispell, and others. Mr. Hemingway is a Guggenheim fellow and has received numerous commissions for chamber and orchestral works as well as being noted for his innovative and multifaceted work as a solo performer which began in 1974. He was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet between 1983 and 1994 and is also well known for his collaborations with some of the world's most outstanding improvisers and composers including Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Anthony Davis, Derek Bailey, Leo Smith and many others. He currently lives in Switzerland having joined the faculty of the Hochschule Luzern in 2009."

"Manuel Troller (*1986, Lucerne, Switzerland), guitarist and composer, is actively working in diverse musical genres. Since 2006, he plays and composes with the internationally active Band Schnellertollermeier - who plays music without compromises, ranging from modern composition, minimal music and improv to brute rock music - but feels just as home in Pop. Through pushing the boundaries on his instrument with preparations, extended techniques, sound manipulation and a fine sense for the moment, he became one of the most demanded guitar players in Switzerland. Manuel Troller studied with musicians such as Frank Möbus, Christy Doran and Fred Frith at the School of Music Lucerne, Switzerland.

He has collaborated with Sophie Hunger, Gerry Hemingway, Nik Bärtsch, Julian Sartorius, Stephan Eicher, Merz, Ensemble for New Music Zurich, Christian Weber, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Hans Koch, Michael Fehr, Christoph Erb among others.

Recent Solo performances include Café OTO London, Bad Bonn Kilbi, B-Sides Festival (Featured Artist), Bee-Flat Berne, Südpol Lucerne, Klappfon Basel as well as double bills with Marc Ribot, Lee Ranaldo, Tetuzi Akiyama & Alan Licht among others.

Other Festivals and concerts include Montreux Jazz Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Olympia Paris, Haldern Pop Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Schauspielhaus Zurich, Bad Bonn Kilbi, Enjoy Jazz Festival Mannheim, Internationale Theaterhaus Jazztage Stuttgart, 12 Points Festival, Les Eurockéennes Belfort, Jazzfestival Skopje, EFG Jazz Festival London, The Vortex London, Swiss Diagonales Jazz, Jazzfestival Schaffhausen etc."

Florestan Berset is a swiss guitarist, mostly involved in Free Experimental Music.

"Earl Howard has been performing his compositions in the United States and Europe for over fifty years. His recent compositions include music for live electronics, electronic tape music as well as music for electronics and instruments. Earl Howard's method of creating orchestrated sounds with electronics and adding live, improvisational performance creates a unique, densely layered composition. Howard has performed at numerous venues including Merkin Hall, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Roulette, and Carnegie Recital Hall. In 2011 Earl Howard received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2004 his first sound installation was commissioned for the Tiffany Collection at the Queens Museum of Art. In the spring of 2003 Howard had a Regents Fellowship at UCSD. Howard received three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. In 1998 Howard was the recipient of Harvard's Fromm Foundation Commission. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts in Music Composition in 1974.

Recently Howard has performed frequently at UCSB, Roulette, the Herbst Theater, The Stone, and Merkin Hall with improvisers including; Georg Graewe, Mari Kimura, Mark Dresser, Anne LeBaron, Evan Parker, Thomas Buckner, and George Lewis. In 2005 he premiered a live improvisation with David Wessel at CINMAT in Berkeley, California. In 2006 he premiered Waftings in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. In 2006 he was commissioned by the Donaueschingen Festival to produce a new ensemble work, Clepton. He also performed and composed for the Acoustmania Festival in Romania and Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon Festival 2006 in Austria. In 2007 Earl Howard was a special guest synthesizer performer and sound designer with the Perspectives Ensemble at the Miller Theatre and with the with Opera Omaha for Anthony Davis's opera Wakonda's Dream. In 2012 he premiered a composition made possible through his Guggenheim Fellowship "Superstring" in New York. This piece brought together musicians Wu Wei, Allan Jaffe, Miya Masaoka, Ernst Reijseger, Mark Dresser, Harris Eisenstadt, and Earl Howard.Earl Howard's compositions have been recorded by a number of musicians including Anthony Davis' recording of "Particle W", for piano and tape, released on the Gramavision label and Gerry Hemingway's recording of "D.R. for Solo percussion" on the Auricle Record label. The recording, "Pele's Tears" is from ten years of his electronic music on the Random Acoustics Label and "Fire Song" on Erstwhile Records with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney. "Strong Force" for ensemble and electronics was released on Mutable Music's Label in the Spring of 2003. "Clepton" and "Granulary Modality" were recently released by New World Records.

Earl Howard has also produced numerous soundtracks for some of the leading film and video artists including Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand."

"The Swiss, Swedish dual citizen Sebastian Strinning was born on June 1, 1985, and grew up in Othmarsingen (AG / CH). At age 9, he received the first saxophone lessons. When he started his first band at the age of 16, and spent hours jamming in a bandroom, he began to practice the music more seriously. Since then he has been involved in a variety of projects, and has toured several times in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Spain.

From 2006 to 2013 he studies music at the Lucerne University of Music. He took u. a. Urs Leimgruber, Gerry Hemingway, Hans Koch, John Voirol and Fredrik Ljungkvist teachings, while at the same time he was increasingly concerned with free improvisation and contemporary jazz. In 2011 he received a scholarship from the Friedl - Wald Foundation and went on a search for clues for a year in Stockholm. He worked extensively on Swedish folk music and worked closely with free improvising musicians of the Stockholm scene. Since 2013 he also organizes concerts in the Mullbau, and plays with Gerry Hemingway and Manuel Troller in the Trio Tree Ear. In 2014 he won the CS Jazzförderpreis with his solo project and, together with Marc Unternährer, curates the new series Tuesdays_Jazz at the Kleintheater Luzern.

Sebastian Strinning plays with Gerry Hemingway, Lauren Newton, Joachim Badenhorst, Christoph Baumann, Hämi Hämmerli, Gabriela Friedli, Christian Weber, Marc Unternährer, Hanspeter Pfammatter, Markus Lauterburg, Thomas KJ Mejer, Manuel Troller, Audrey Lauro, Hugo Antunes and many more together."

"Bänz Oester has worked with the likes of many great jazz musicians, such as Dewey Redman, Joe Lovano, Michael Brecker, Ray Anderson, Ellery Eskelin and Chris Potter. His bass foundations and musicality has formed the backbone of multiple collaborations. Over the past 30 years he has been one of the most sought-after bassists. Currently he is performing with his quartet, The Rainmakers, in the WHO Trio with Michel Wintsch and Gerry Hemingway, in the Donat Fisch Quartett, in the trio with Hans Feigenwinter and Norbert Pfammatter and in one more trio with Alvin Schwaar and Noé Franklé. Bänz Oester is also recognized as an exceptional soloist. He knows his instrument down to the pores and continuosly explores it anew with plucking, stroking and percussive playing techniques. In his hands the bass becomes a body of sound that exceeds stylistic boundaries. He creates an architecture of music that is pure melody, emotion and groove, swinging, dancing and relishing/revelling into the warm sound that is the trademark of Bänz Oester."

"Linda Egli is a violinist on various stages in Switzerland and throughout Europe. Her passion ranges from chamber music and tango nuevo to her work in a wide variety of orchestras and numerous solo performances. From baroque to contemporary, she is fascinated by the unifying power of music, always on the lookout for new forms of expression and sounds. Her enthusiasm for theater and visual arts underlines some of her concert stagings and productions and allows visitors to immerse themselves in a sensual world again and again."

"Christy Doran, electric & acoustic guitar

Christy Doran was born in Dublin, Ireland and has lived in Lucerne, Switzerland since his childhood. His father was an Irish ballad singer, providing Christy with his first exposure to music.

In the 1970´s he was a founding member (along with Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgruber and Bobby Burri) of the seminal Swiss band "OM". Tours throughout Europe, radio/TV - appearances, workshops, music for ballet, theatre and film. Over the years, his career has included countless solo concerts, in which he regularly pushes to the limits the capabilities of a single guitar. He has played in duos with Marty Ehrlich, Harry Pepl, Fritz Hauser, Dave Doran, Dom Um Romao, John Wolf-Brennan, Robert Dick, Ray Anderson, among others. After playing in a trio with Jasper van´t Hof, he went on to form the "Christy Doran´s May 84" septet with Norma Winstone, Trilok Gurtu, Urs Leimgruber, Rosko Gee, Dom Um Romao and Dave Doran. He has been a member of the "Peter Warren Quartet" with Victor Lewis and John Surman, and "RED TWIST & TUNED ARROW" with Stephan Wittwer and Fredy Studer (1985 - 1987).

Christy Doran was also a co-founder of "Doran/Studer/Burri/Magnenat," (later "Doran/Studer/Gerber/Magnenat") and member of a quartet with Bobby Previte, Mark Helias and Gary Thomas. He played in a trio with Marilyn Mazur and Kim Clarke, as well as with Sibylle Pomorin´s "Augeries of Speed" meeting Terry Jenour, Annie Whitehead, Kim Clarke, Herb Robertson, Kamal Sabir. As a member of Urs Leimgruber´s "Ensemble Bleu" he also played with Francoise Kubler, Louis Sclavis, Hans Koch.

Other performances have included work with Carla Bley, Albert Mangelsdorff, Bob Stewart, Edvard Vesala, Charlie Mariano, Manfred Schoof, Iréne Schweizer, Aldo Romano, Piérre Favre, Peter Schärli, Glenn Ferris, Wolfgang Dauner, Fernando Sounders, Heiri Känzig, Julio Barreto, Sonny Sharrock, Jim Meneses, Keven Bruce Harris, Martin Schütz, Daniel Mouton, Ronan Guilfoyle, Marc Peterson, Burhan Oecal, Werner Lüdi, Christoph Baumann, Lars Lindvall, Mark Halbheer, Urs Blöchlinger, Günter Müller, Lauren Newton, Tim Berne, Jim Black, Gunther Schuller, Airto Moreira a.o. He has toured in Europe, North-Africa, India, the Caribic, Mexico, Bolivia, the U.S. and Canada.

1989 began a collaboration with trombonist Ray Anderson, which lead to the trio ANDERSON/BENNINK/DORAN (including drummer Han Bennink), which disbanded 1997.

1993 Christy Doran, together with Fredy Studer started the project "DORAN/STUDER/MINTON/BATES & ALI" play the music of JIMI HENDRIX". 1994 Django Bates was replaced by cellist Tom Cora. 1995/96 the band played in quartet with Phil Minton, Amin Ali, Fredy Studer and Christy Doran. Tours with this band throughout Europe, Scandinavia, , the US and Canada.

Since 1993 Christy Doran is working with American flutist Robert Dick and English drummer Steve Argüelles as the A.D.D. - Trio. 1994 Fredy Studer and Christy Doran refounded the double-bass - quartet with Jean-François Jenny-Clark (acoustic bass/Paris) and Jamaaladeen Tacuma (electric bass/Philadelphia).

1994 Swedish saxofonist Thomas Jàderlund invited Doran to play in the "Amazing Orchestra" (with Guy Klucevsek, Stein-Erik Tafjord, Svante Henryson, Tomasz Stanko, and Jonny Axelsson). A new collaboration with Albert Mangelsdorff, Bruno Spoerri and Reto Weber started 1997.

Recordings have included those with Hank Roberts, Joe McPhee, Corin Curschellas, Hardy Hepp, Helmut Zerlett, Iréne Lorenz, Boris Salchak, besides several recordings with musicians mentioned above.

Christy Doran´s current groups include "Christy Doran´s New Bag" (founded Dec. 97) with vocalist Bruno Amstad, Wolfgang Zwiauer on electric bass, and Fabian Kurattli on drums. the A.D.D. trio, and "Spöerri-Doran-Weber" with Albert Mangelsdorff.

Christy Doran also teaches at the "Musikhochschule" of Lucerne/Switzerland."

"Michael Moore was born (1954) and raised in Arcata, California, USA. After absorbing music at home, playing locally and attending The College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University, he moved to Boston to study with Jaki Byard, Gunther Schuller, Ran Blake, Joe Allard, George Russell and Joe Maneri at the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1977. After a year in New York City he travelled to Europe for the first time in the summer of 1978 to play with Available Jelly, the musical accompaniment to the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe. Since 1982 he has made his home in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The early '80's found him working in the theater (Baal, Dogtroep, De Voorziening, Teo Joling, Mug met de Gouden Tand) and dance (Pauline De Groot, Katie Duck, Allessandro Certini, Shusaku Takeuchi and Virgilio Sieni) as well as various musical contexts such as Gijs Hendricks' Octet, Franky Douglas' Sunchild, Guus Janssen's Septet and Maarten Altena's Quartet and Octet. Later he played and recorded with the groups of Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Sean Bergin, Maurice Horsthuis, Georg Graewe, Klaus Konig, Burton Greene (Klezmokum), Simon Nabatov, Dave Douglas, Myra Melford, Mark Dresser, Ig Henneman and others.

In 1986 he received the Dutch jazz award, the Boy Edgar Prijs. In '97 Trio Clusone was voted #1 acoustic group (Talent Deserving Wider Recognition) in Down Beat's Critics Poll; in 2000 - 2002 Moore was voted #1 clarinetist in the same poll. He was also voted winner of the Bird Award from the Northsea Jazz Fest in 2000.

Since '91 his activities as composer and performer have been documented both on his own recording label, Ramboy, and others including hatART, Palmetto, Gramavision, Between the Lines and Red Toucan. His playing and writing are to be heard on more than 80 CDs.

His activities as a concert designer came to the fore in '93 with a commission for YoYo Ma's Carte Blanche at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; a three day festival (Moore & more) in Bremen, Germany; Clusone & friends concerts in Italy and Holland, and a three-day Available Jelly Festival at the Felix Meritus concert hall in Amsterdam. In '94 he organized three evenings at De Singel in Antwerpen with Lee Konitz, Misha Mengelberg, Joey Baron, Marilyn Crispell, Gerry Hemingway, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Feldman and others.

His more recent activities include performances with his 'Fragile' Quartet, Michael Moore Quintet, Jewels & Binoculars - play the music of Bob Dylan, Misha Mengelberg's Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, the Magpie dance and music performance group, the Achim Kaufmann Trio, Benoit Delbecq, Oskar Aichinger (music of Carla Bley and Annette Peacock) and the Paul Berner band.

Michael Moore has a deep understanding of both the American jazz and the Dutch improvised music traditions, but his writing and playing are also influenced by music from other cultures. He has played Turkish music with Ogüz Büyükberber and Hüsnü Senlendirici, Malinese with Toumani Diabate, Keletigui Diabate and Habib Koite, Portuguese with Fernando Lameirinhas and Cristina Branco, and Brazilian with Rogerio Bicudo, Banda Mantiqueira and Paulo Moura. The musics of Sicily, Madagascar, Istria and Indonesia have also been particularly influential. He has collaborated with and been influenced by poets and poetry, dancers and other visual artists. Michael continues to write, improvise, play and prepare new releases for Ramboy and other labels."

"The master years have begun, the two children are grown, and Wolfgang Zwiauer stands there like a bare tree trunk in the musical life, the branches of youth and the last 30 years as a bassist in the jazz, pop, improv and songwriter scene have been sawed off for the most part and new collaborations sprout finely into the next phase.

Long-term collaborations with Christy Doran's New Bag, Shirley Grimes, Tinu Heiniger, Hans Feigenwinter, Don Li stand still, are over or are waiting for new versions, 20 years of university teaching have been held, 150 productions have been recorded and tours to distant countries have taken place. And now? Now comes the second tranche with another 30 years full of music!

Participating in new territory is the invitation for a higher dose of artistic input.

A release is imminent with the new drum-bass vessel 'BASS DRUM PEOPLE', in which the vibe of the compositions was equally influenced by Fabian Bürgi and Wolfgang Zwiauer.

In the dance project 'ENDLICH' by Karin Minger, 5 musicians from classical, electronic, old and new music plus Wolfgang Zwiauer on the mandocello come together, improvise and interpret to body sculptures in architectural shells.

With the 70-year-old grandmaster Christy Doran on the guitar and Lukas Mantel on the drums, the trio 'MORPHEOS' was formed, in which Wolfgang Zwiauer wanted to intervene more in the production method in order to discover a new guitar trio sound. The ability to layer tracks is borrowed from pop music and is intended to bring new possibilities with the use of the recording studio as an instrument.

Wherever possible, Wolfgang Zwiauer insists on trying to mix generations and genders to promote equality and diversity in a male-dominated music scene. The new band 'ALVA LEAVES' of drummer Gert Stäuble benefits from this and forms a lineup of 3 women and 3 men, with an age range of 21 to 56 years. As the best side effect of this, daughter Sophie Grimes and Finja Keogh are represented as newcomers.

The bands 'Enders Room' around the German tenor sax giant Johannes Enders and Mich Gerber's ALL STAR JAM BAND with ex-Young God Al Comet and Andi Pupato are rarely active, but when they are, they're always happy because the musicianship is so great.

After a long time at an institution like the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, Wolfgang Zwiauer founded his own BASS BÜRO BERN, where private lessons can take place as a mandate for prospective professionals, as well as other forms of musical, production-technical support for the implementation of cultural projects.

The evaluation of the 100 results with around 240 musicians from the 'LIFE AT THE ZOO' series, which were created during the pandemic years 20-22 in the 'The Zoo' studio in Bern and were technically and programmatically supervised, will also be part of the cultural resources use up until this partial cross-section of the local scene can be heard free of charge for everyone in the long term.

Part of my passion flows into musical environments that are primarily fun and enjoyable, do not pursue or aspire to a career and are therefore heartwarming. Wolfgang Zwiauer seeks exchange with younger and older musicians such as current master drummer Norbert Pfammatter, high-flyer guitarist Dimitri Howald, newcomer Sonja Ott on trumpet to interpret favorite standards from the big songbooks. 'JAZZ!' Or with Sophie and Finja he interprets street versions of teenage playlists with folky grooving mandocello, stompbox and delays and they perform as 'TEENAGE SONGBOOK'. At private parties, Florian Favre, Simon Baumann, Daniel Woodtli and Wolfgang Zwiauer keep coming together as 'ROOFTOPPERS' and jam for hours, morphing through their common denominator. As a former member of the SWISS JAZZ ORCHESTRA, I'm always happy to help out in this fiery, self-directed big band when Antonio Schiavano isn't able to.

Parallel to the music world, Wolfgang Zwiauer works with Dan Hodler's architecture and recycling company QUADRAT and helps in various corners and ends to realize the vision of a 60-meter high wooden building in Ostermundigen near Bern. Designed according to the latest recycling ideas and with the potential to develop a music community with shared work, recording and living spaces, including shared material."

"Born in Singapore in 1998, Hannah Wirnsperger moved to Liechtenstein as a child, where she studied the flute with Dr. phil. Hossein Samieian since 2005. After successfully completing the Liechtenstein Gymnasium, she was enrolled in the flute class of Charles Aeschlimann and Anne-Laure Pantillons at the Lucerne School of Music in 2017, where she studied until 2020. She worked there together with Joëlle Léandre and Fred Frith, among others. Since 2020, she has been working on her Masters in Contemporary Performance and Composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater, EAMT.

Hannah attended master classes with Sébastian Jacot, Peter-Lukas Graf and Philippe Bernold, among others, and is a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, where she regularly takes part in the intensive weeks and activities of the Music Academy.

Since she was ten years old, Hannah has been able to gain solo, ensemble and orchestral experience at national competitions in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria. Podium concerts, youth performance badges and the Academy for Contemporary Music (LU) always strengthened her musical imagination. Since she values the direct collaboration with composers and improvisers most, Hannah is part of various ensembles that perform both contemporary and improvised music inside and outside of Switzerland."

"Trumpeter/Composer Ralph Alessi was born in San Francisco,CA, the son of classical trumpeter Joe Alessi and opera singer Maria Leone. After taking degrees in jazz trumpet and bass-he studied under the legendary Charlie Haden at CalArts-he lit out for New York, where he swiftly became an ubiquitous presence on the downtown scene. He's been a frequent collaborator with such notable musicians as Steve Coleman, Jason Moran, Don Byron, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch, Uri Caine and Marc Copland. Alessi has recorded nine albums of original compositions which draw on everything from post-bop to neo classical music. He currently records for the ECM record label including his 2016 release Quiver. In 2018, he will release a new This Against That record on the label. As an educator, Ralph is an Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at University of Nevada-Reno as well as the director of the School for Improvisational Music."