Cheryl E. Leonard is a San Francisco-based composer, performer, field recordist, and instrument builder whose works investigate sounds, structures, and objects from the natural world. Her projects cultivate stones, wood, water, ice, sand, shells, feathers, and bones as musical instruments, and often feature one-of-a-kind sculptural instruments and field recordings from remote locales. Leonard is fascinated by the subtle textures and intricacies of sounds, especially very quiet phenomena. She uses microphones to uncover and explore micro-aural worlds within her sound sources, and develops compositions that highlight the unique voices she discovers. Structurally and thematically, her creations often reflect on natural phenomena and processes. Her recent work focuses on environmental issues, especially climate change in the polar regions and California and the extinction of species.

Leonard's music has been performed worldwide. Her compositions for natural-object instruments have been featured on several television programs, including KQED TV's Spark, and in Tim Perkis's video documentary Noisy People. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, New Music USA, American Composer's Forum, American Music Center, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the Eric Stokes Fund, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Leonard has been commissioned to create music and instruments for Kronos Quartet, Hope Mohr Dance's Bridge Project, the La Jolla Historical Society, Funsch Dance, and Illuminated Corridor. She has been awarded residencies at Kunstnarhuset Messen, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, the Arctic Circle, Engine 27, the Paul Dresher Ensemble ARC Program, and Villa Montalvo. Recordings of her music are available from Great Hoary Marmot Music, Nexmap, Ubuibi, Unusual Animals, Eh?, Engraved Glass, Apraxia Records, 23 Five Inc, Old Gold Records, and The Lab. Additionally, Leonard has contributed to several publications about music and sound art; and her instruments, installations, and graphic scores have been exhibited in art galleries in the U. S., Norway, Australia, Mexica, and Argentina.

Beyond her individual work, Leonard has collaborated extensively with other musicians, across artistic disciplines, and with scientists. Over the past three decades she has played in many experimental music ensembles and noise bands. These days she often performs with the groups Thomas Carnacki, Euphotic, and Big City Orchestra. Leonard has produced numerous installations and multimedia works together with visual artists, including Adfreeze Project with Oona Stern, Sila and Thresholds with Genevieve Swifte, and Tides:Estuary, Frozen Over and Watershed with Rebecca Haseltine. She has also composed for dance, theater, film, and video; designed sounds for exhibits in science museums; and developed works with climatologists, oceanographers, and biologists.

Leonard holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MA from Mills College, both in music composition. She studied composition and electronic music with Alvin Curran, Chris Brown, George Lewis, Frederic Rzewski, Laeticia Sonami, Salvatore Macchia, and Alan Bonde; and performance art with Moira Roth, Carole E. Schneemann, and Betsy Damon."

"Tom Djll studied electronic music with Stephen Scott at the Colorado College, working with the EMS Synthi 100 system at Packard Hall. In 1978 and 79 Djll studied at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY, with Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, George Lewis, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Karl Berger and many other giants of new music. He spent the years 1981-1993 working with the Serge Modular Music System before enrolling in Mills College Contemporary Music Program, where he extended his quest to develop and integrate an idiosyncratic trumpet language into an electronic sound environment, while also pursuing advanced improvisation studies, formally, with Pauline Oliveros, and, informally, with Jack Wright. While at Mills, Djll concentrated on microtonal composition, split-tone trumpet technique, and computer music. He also worked extensively with Chris Brown, resulting in contributions to Brown's recordings LAVA (Tzadik) and DUETS (Artifact).

Further refinement of trumpet languages and free improvisation with his band GROSSE ABFAHRT was undertaken from 1999 - 2010, published on the Emanem, Creative Sources, and Setola di Maiale labels. Beginning in 2012, Djll gradually re-introduced electronics into his sound-set. The results are heard in projects like hackMIDI (extreme electro-mechanical piano music), piano + analog electronics in TENDER BUTTONS (with Tania Chen and Gino Robair), delicate environments in EUPHOTIC (with Cheryl Leonard and Bryan Day), austere acoustic spaces with KOKUO (Kanoko Nishi-Smith, John McCowen, Jacob Felix Heule, and Kyle Bruckmann) and ongoing sessions and performances within the lively and ever-evolving Bay Area scene, including: Tim Perkis, Amanda Chaudhary, Jordan Glenn, Clarke Robinson, Suki O'Kane, Matt Ingalls, Tom Nunn, bran(...)pos, and Karen Stackpole.

Obligatory list of famous musicians Djll has played and/or recorded with:

Roscoe Mitchell, David Toop, Fred Frith, William Winant, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, Ava Mendoza, John Butcher, Vladimir Tarasov, Le Quan Ninh, Tania Chen, Wobbly, Frank Gratkowski, Miya Masaoka, nmperign, Tatsuya Nakatani, Vijay Iyer, and Zeena Parkins."

"Bryan Day is a sonic adventurer, painter and inventor of curious things based in the East Bay. Using scavenged electronics, repurposed mechanical components and amplified materials that you might find in your garage or your great uncle's office, he re-imagines them into constructivist sound sculptures. Day has performed, taught workshops, and built sound installations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. He spends his days designing, building and fixing exhibits at the Exploratorium and Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco.

Festival appearances include Soundwave Festival (San Francisco, 2014), Thingamajigs Festival (San Francisco, 2013), New Media Sound and Art Summit (Austin, 2013), Milwaukee Noise Festival (Milwaukee, 2012), Denver Noise Festival (Denver, 2011), Heliotrope Festival (Minneapolis, 2010), Megapolis Festival (Baltimore, 2010), Denver Noise Festival (Denver, 2010), Transistor Festival (Denver, 2009), Quiet Music Festival (Cork, Ireland, 2008), Sonic Circuits Festival (Washington, D.C., 2007), Soundfield Festival (Chicago, 2005), and SubZero Festival (Minneapolis, 2001). Day has over 40 solo and ensemble releases on labels such as Creative Sources, Bug Incision, Friends and Relatives, Gameboy, Freedom From, Digitalis, Featherspines, Neus-318, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Unread, and Seagull.

Since 1997 he has been running the new music label Public Eyesore and its sister label Eh?. Through Public Eyesore and Eh?, Day has produced and released over 250 albums of improvised and experimental music by artists from all over the globe and organized numerous tours for American artists in Japan. Day curated regular events at Canessa Gallery, Meridian Galley, Clawfoot House (Lincoln, 2009-2010), Tiptop Haus (Omaha, 2005-2007), The Magic Theatre (Omaha, 2006) and Sitting Still, Going Places first Friday series at Chatterbox (Lincoln, 2006-2007).

Day facilitates invented instrument building workshops, both to build instruments of his own design and freeform workshops that focus on building sound objects using repurposed materials. These include Whiskerphone, Rotowhisker, Sonic Marionette, Sound Mouse, Junk Kalimba and Circuit Bending. Get in touch if you are interested in hosting a workshop."