"Paul Grabowsky is a pianist, composer, arranger, conductor - and is one of Australia's most distinguished artists.

Born in Lae, Papua New Guinea in 1958, Paul was raised in Melbourne where he attended Wesley College. During the late 70's he became prominent in the music scene in Melbourne, working in various jazz, theater and cabaret projects.

He lived and worked in Europe and the US from 1980-85, during which time he performed with many jazz luminaries including Chet Baker, Art Farmer and Johnny Griffin. He returned to Australia in 1986 and established a reputation as one of Australia's leading jazz musicians with such bands as his own trio and sextet, the Wizards of Oz and as musical director for singer Vince Jones.

He was musical director of Tonight Live with Steve Vizard from 1990-1992.

He has written the scores for over twenty feature films in Australia, the UK and US including The Eye of the Storm and Last Orders (Fred Schepisi) Innocence (Paul Cox), and Shiner (John Irvin). Among the many other filmmakers he has worked with are Gillian Armstrong, Nadia Tass and Clara Law. His television credits include the series Phoenix and Janus and the Emmy-winning Empire Falls. His works for the theater include two operas and various multimedia works.

He is the founder and AD of the Australian Art Orchestra, with which he tours both nationally and internationally. Recent AAO projects have concentrated on collaborations with traditional and contemporary indigenous performers, something which Paul passionately advocates.

Among his numerous CD releases are two for the Hush series (for which he is Artistic Director), designed to assist in the healing environment of Melbourne Children's Hospital.

He has won four ARIA awards, two Helpmann awards, several Bell Awards and a Deadly award. He was the Sydney Myer Performing Artist of the Year in 2000, and received the Melbourne Prize for Music in 2007.

He was Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival from 2005-2007 and the 2010 Adelaide Festival, and is currently Artistic Director of the 2012 Adelaide Festival."

Andrew Ford OAM is an award-winning composer, writer and broadcaster. 'Comeclose and Sleepnow' is Ford's first foray writing for improvising ensemble.

"Robert Burke has enjoyed a diverse and wide-ranging career as a performer, composer, researcher and educator in music. Classically trained on the clarinet and saxophones, his main focus as a performer has been in jazz and popular music, including eight years performing and composing with Kate Ceberano (including a top-ten Australian hit) and fifteen years with ARIA award-winning band The Black Sorrows.

Rob has performed on and contributed compositions to over 200 CDs by groups ranging from pop acts such as John Farnham, Ice House, Real Life, Vika and Linda Bull, to contemporary jazz projects with leading artists including Tony Gould, Paul Grabowsky, Vince Jones, Tony Floyd, Doug De Vries, Slava Gregorian, Geoff Hughes, Nick Haywood, Paul Williamson, Jordan Murray and Stephen Magnusson.

Rob has performed /recorded with many international jazz artists including Kenny Werner, Mark Helias, Nasheet Waits, Tom Rainey, Enrico Rava Dave Douglas, George Lewis, Red Rodney, John Abercrombie, Paul McCandless (Origon), George Garzone, Richie Barshay, Johannes Weidenmueller (USA), Lula Galvao, Roberta Valente, Hermeto Pascoal (Brazil), Mirko Guerrini, Debasis Chakroborty (India) and Qmars Piraglu (Iran)

"Cat Hope, born 11 March 1966, is an Australian musician and academic, based in Melbourne and is currently the Head of Music at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music - Monash University. She is best known as a noise, installation and performance artist. She was a founder of the legendary Perth noise duo Lux Mammoth; was a singer, songwriter and bassist in dark indie band Gata Negra, and she also performs solo noise music using bass guitar. Her current projects include a series of works that focus on low frequency called 'the low grooms' and a bass improv quartet Abe Sada.

Hope lectured in classical music and music technology at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In 2000 she was awarded the Pandora's Box Film Festival Award for best film score. In that year her music was included in the Extreme Music From Women compilation, issued by the Susan Lawly label. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the UWA School of Music (now the UWA Conservatorium of Music)."

Marc Hannaford is an improviser, composer, and academic based in New York. Fainter, Stronger presents a series of sonic portraits of some of his musical collaborators and influencers, framed within large scale temporal cycles.

Paul Williamson is a trumpeter, composer and educator. 'For Tomasz' is a homage to Polish trumpeter and composer, Tomasz Stanko (1942-2018) with whom MAE collaborated in 2016.

Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned composer and saxophonist. 'The Drunkard's Walk' explores the relationship between improvisation and composition and stems from her current Australia Council Fellowship that considers the role of randomness in improvised music.