"Merche Blasco is a multimedia artist and composer based in New York.

She designs and builds imprecise technological assemblages that catalyze embodied forms of live electroacoustic composition and new modes of listening. Through her constructed devices, Blasco attempts to establish a more horizontal relationship with other entities, distancing herself from parameters of precision, power, and control. As an alternative form of performance, she engineers collaborative spaces with instruments that are given their own agency, in compositions where her body and the live exploration of organic materials are central elements.

She has presented her performances and installations at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Sonar Festival in Barcelona, La Biennale di Venezia, NIME conferences, Tsonami International Sound Art Festival in Chile, The High Line in New York, SONIC Festival, Mapping Festival (Geneva), Queens Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile, among others. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Wire magazine.

Blasco is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in music composition at New York University (GSAS)."

Lucie Vítková: "I am a composer, improviser and performer (accordion, hichiriki, harmonica, voice and tap dance) from the Czech Republic, living in New York, 2017 Herb Alpert Awards in Arts nominee in the category of Music.

In Spring 2016, I was awarded as an emerging artist of Thomas M. Messer Bohemian Creative Hub at the Czech Center New York. I have also been commissioned by Roulette Emerging Artist Commission Program with support of the Jerome Foundation in New York in 2017 and have become the 2018 Roulette Resident.

My compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in my improvisation practice I explore characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In the recent work, I am interested in the musical legacy of Morse Code and the social-political aspects of music and art in relation to everyday life.

I graduated in accordion performance at Brno Conservatory in 2010 and composition at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (CZ) in 2020. During my Master Degree, I studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL) and at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (USA). I have studied with Martin Smolka, Jaroslav Šťastný, Martijn Padding, Gillius van Bergijk and Michael Pisaro.

As a student of JAMU Brno, I have realized my Ph.D. research at Universität der Künste in Berlin (partly on DAAD scholarship) under the supervision of Marc Sabat (2014-2015). Since 2016, I have been based in the City of New York, where I have done my research as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University with Prof. George Lewis (2016-2018), and at the New York University (2018-2019).

I have obtained my Ph.D. degree in March 2020. In my dissertation, I have analyzed music of Christian Wolff, researching on his compositional techniques which he has been using to change relationships between players and to reform established hierarchies in music. I have put together two ensembles - NYC Constellation Ensemble (focused on musical behavior) and OPERA ensemble (for singing instrumentalists).

During the Mentor/Protégé Residency in Tokyo (JP), I studied hichiriki with Hitomi Nakamura and have been a member of the Columbia University Gagaku Ensemble and CU Raaga ensemble.

As an accordion player, I have collaborated with New York based TAK Ensemble, Kamraton, S.E.M. ensemble, String Noise, Du.0 , Argento Ensemble, Ghost Ensemble and Wet Ink."