"Kasey Knudsen is a San Francisco-based saxophonist, composer & educator. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Composition from Berklee College of Music in 2002. She has been dubbed "one of the region's most esteemed saxophonists" (Andrew Gilbert, San Francisco Classical Voice, 2018) and has "quietly become one of the essential voices in the Bay Area jazz scene" (Andrew Gilbert, East Bay Express, 2014). Knudsen was included in a list of "10 Female Instrumentalists Who Redefine Jazz" by Alexa Peters of Paste Magazine (2016) and voted "One of the Best Female Jazz Musicians in the East Bay" (CBS, SF local Bay Area, 2013).

As a composer, Knudsen has been commissioned by the San Jose Jazz 'New Works Festival' to write a piece and create an accompanying film in response to the global pandemic (2021). In 2020, she was the recipient of InterMusic SF's Small Chamber Music Grant, funding the debut album of the Kasey Knudsen Sextet. In 2013, Knudsen was commissioned by Intersection For the Arts to compose and perform an evening of new work featuring her original music. In 2008, Knudsen was featured in a series presented by the De Young Museum, showcasing her composition inspired by visual artist Deborah Oropallo. In 2005, she was commissioned by the California Jazz Conservatory's Emerging Artist Series to present an evening of original music.

In addition to leading a number of her own projects, as a co-leader, she is involved in several groups including the Schimscheimer Family Trio, the Holly Martins, and the Klaxon Mutant Allstars. Knudsen collaborates frequently with many of the most unique musical voices in the Bay Area including multiple performances across the US and Europe with Tune-Yards, Fred Frith and the Gravity Band, the Charlie Hunter Quartet, Erik Jekabson, the Ian Carey Quintet + 1, Ben Goldberg, the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Beth Schenck, and many more.

As an educator, Knudsen specializes in the development of improvisation skills through the study of harmony, transcription, and saxophone technique with a focus on sound production, articulation, phrasing, and ear training. She currently teaches ensembles and workshops at the California Jazz Conservatory. She has been a clinician at Berkeley High School, Piedmont High School, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Lafayette Jazz Workshop, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Reno Jazz Festival, and the UC Berkeley Young Musician's Program. Knudsen was an adjunct professor of Jazz Studies at Sonoma State University for 10 years."

Beth Schenck is a San Francisco-based saxophonist and composer who writes bracing music that blends lush harmonies with fierce propulsiveness and rhythmic surprise. Her work has been described as "frank and beautiful" (MetalJazz.com) and "reliably enthralling" (San Francisco Chronicle). She leads a quintet performing her original music, the Social Sutter saxophone quartet, and collaborates in projects such as the Guthrie Project and House of Faern. Her solo debut, Above and Below, was recently released on Innova Records.

"Reeds player Cory Wright, educated at Oberlin College and the University of Southern California, has been involved in both the jazz and creative music worlds for the past 20 years, including time spent in New York, Los Angeles and his current home in the San Francisco bay area. His recent projects reflect his interest in blurring the distinction between composed and improvised material and in combining the harmonious with the atonal, and groove with the arrhythmic.

Cory has played in ensembles lead by Anthony Braxton, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gale, Adam Rudolph and Yusef Lateef. He is currently a member of bay area groups Bristle, Wiener Kids, the Nathan Clevenger Group and the Oakland Active Orchestra, and leads his own projects Green Mitchell and the Cory Wright Outfit."

"Polly Springhorn is a composer, performer, and improviser based in Oakland, California, USA. Equally at home in the worlds of free improvisation, composition, and rock, she is a member of Ghost in the House and Reconnaissance Fly. She is also an Associate Ensemble Member of Theatre of Yugen."

Rob Ewing is a trombonist, composer, bassist, and bandleader based in Oakland, CA, known for his probing, quirky, and lyrical approach to jazz and experimental music. His playing blends fluid storytelling with a rhythm-driven sensibility. With Sifter, he explores homespun, personal compositions with a deep interest in group improvisation and ensemble interplay. Ewing also performs with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, the Humidors, and Swerve Control, and leads the bands Junior Reggae and Disappear Incompletely.

"Crystal Pascucci-Clifford is committed to serving nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to sustaining and celebrating the Bay Area's vibrant musical community. As a conservatory-trained cellist and composer, Crystal has defined a career in arts administration alongside curation, composing, teaching music, performing, and learning. At Oakland School for the Arts, a public 6-12 charter school, she held several roles that included music instructor and management of a $700k fund. She participated in over 50 Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) workshops and was a member of the Equity Task Force. The task force provided recommendations for culturally responsive curriculum content and equitable grading policies. Crystal joined InterMusic SF in August 2022, serves as the Executive Director, and is dedicated to nourishing the Bay Area creative environment."

"As an artist, Jon Arkin does not fall neatly into one tidy category, genre, or medium, yet his work can always be relied upon to exhibit certain qualities: uniqueness, balance, and inspiration. He is known & sought-after as a drummer, composer, and digital media wrangler.

Arkin's latest projects incorporate his self-designed hybrid electro-acoustic setup, which blends a vast palate of digital textures with organic sound. Drawing upon his extensive background as a tinkerer, hacker, and an aficionado of all styles of music, his work brings a multitude of elements together within the contexts of traditional composition, spontaneous composition, and algorithmic indeterminacy. He can be seen & heard using this setup with the Schimscheimer Family Trio (with saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and keyboardist Michael Coleman), with clarinetist Ben Goldberg (as a duo, and in other Goldberg projects), as a solo performer, and in collaboration with various other artists.

In addition to leading his own groups, he has performed around the U.S. and internationally with jazz greats such as Lee Konitz, Gene Perla, and Ira Sullivan, with singer-songwriters including Vusi Mahlasela, Stew, and Meklit Hadero, Afrobeat bands Albino and Soji Odukogbe, folk musicians Ramblin' Jack Elliott and John Doe, a multitude of experimental/new music collaborators including Nathan Clevenger, Jordan Glenn, Cuong Vu, and MoeTar, as well as countless other musicians. Spanning three decades, his list of recording credits includes dozens of albums and guest appearances in a wide variety of genres, as he maintains an active recording schedule as a studio musician."

"Ph.D. and M.A. in Composition, UC Berkeley; B.A. in Music, Naropa University. Two-time Meet the Composer award recipient; Eisner Prize for Music winner; Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (UC Berkeley); Interaktion Festival finalist (Berlin), drummer and composer JASON LEVIS has led and been a collaborator in numerous jazz, improvised music, and chamber ensembles in the San Francisco Bay Area and Berlin, Germany. These include Joseph's Bones; duo B.; Junior Reggae; the Lost Shapes; the Berlin Boom Orchestra; the Nathan Clevenger Group, and many more. Through these avenues he has been a part of over two-dozen record releases, bridging a multitude of musical styles. He is an active performer on the drum set in both art and popular music settings and has extensive national and international performance experience. He is currently a professor at the California Jazz Conservatory, as well as gives private lessons throughout the bay area."

"Mark Pascucci-Clifford is a vibraphonist, composer, percussionist, pianist, educator, and producer based in Oakland, CA.

A much sought-after performer and improviser, he is deeply involved in new music, jazz, free improvisation, classical music, and indie rock. Along with composing for and leading his own group, 'The Dirty Snacks Ensemble,' Pascucci-Clifford participates in multiple longstanding musical projects across the Bay Area and the US. In demand as a recording musician and arranger, his playing can be heard on over 30 records to date. His performance experience spans worldwide, and he has had the honor of playing alongside an array of master musicians, including Jeff Parker, Kjell Nordeson, Lisa Mezzacappa, Scott Amendola, Ches Smith, Fred Frith, Joan La Barbara, Vinny Golia, Aram Shelton, Colin Stranahan, Jordan Glenn, Rent Romus, and Ron Miles. He has also performed with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra, So Percussion, sfSound, and the Oakland Active Orchestra."

"Nathan Clevenger is an Oakland-bred and -based composer, guitarist and keyboardist, working on the margins of jazz, modern classical, and free improvisation. Since 2003, Nathan's primary musical outlet has been his Nathan Clevenger Group, which has performed over 150 original compositions and has recorded 3 albums, including Stateless. Gigs of note include appearances at the Switchboard Music Festival, SF Friends of Chamber Music's SFMusic Day, and the Center for New Music's "Best Coast Composer" series. The Group is comprised of Kasey Knudsen (alto sax), Cory Wright (tenor sax, clarinet), Rachel Condry (clarinets), Lisa Mezzacappa (bass), Jon Arkin (drums), Jason Levis (drums/percussion), and Tim DeCillis (vibraphone).

Outside of his Group, Clevenger is involved in composing and recording music for film in collaboration with violinist/composer Kristina Dutton. Their multimedia work Ice Hours - created in collaboration with visual artists Kim Miskowicz and Camille Seaman, and supported by grants from New Music USA and thea Fleishhacker Foundation grant - premiered at San Francisco's Exploratorium in March 2019. Clevenger and Dutton's work has focused heavily on science education and has been presented at the UC Berkeley's Vision + Light symposium and the LAST Science and Art Technology Festival. Nathan's also active in the avant-chamber ensemble Ashen Cleric (with Crystal Pascucci, Cory Wright, Jordan Glenn, and Tim DeCillis), and the ever-mutating quartet project Book of Exits."

"Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based bassist, bandleader, composer, curator and producer. An active collaborator in the Bay Area music community for more than a dozen years, she leads her own groups Bait & Switch, the Interlopers, Nightshade, Eartheaters and the Lisa Mezzacappa Trio, and co-leads the ensembles BODABODA, duo B., Cylinder, the Mezzacappa-Phillips Duo, and the Caribbean folk band Les Gwan Jupons. Lisa has released her music on the Clean Feed, NoBusiness, Leo, NotTwo, Evander, Odd Shaped Case and Edgetone record labels, and has recorded as a sideperson for the Tzadik, Kadima and Porto Franco labels. She collaborates frequently on cross-disciplinary projects in sound installation, film/video, sculpture and public music/art.

As curator, she programs the annual JazzPOP concert seres at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, now in its 10th year; and a live cinema series, Mission Eye and Ear, at Artists' Television Access. She founded the Monday Makeout creative music series in the Mission District of San Francisco, and programs the Best Coast Jazz Composers series as a member of the artistic committee San Francisco's Center for New Music. In 2012 she started the "Festival-of-Us," a semi-annual festival celebrating Bay Area creative jazz and improvised music. Recent projects include an avant-folk string band, the Interlopers; Eartheaters, a trio with Brooklyn vocalist Fay Victor; and BODABODA, a cross-planetary collaboration with Venice reed player/composer Piero Bittolo Bon. In fall 2015 she premieres Glorious Ravage, a multi-media song cycle for large ensemble with commissioned films, inspired by the writings of Victorian lady adventurers.

Lisa has been artist-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artists Program (2008, 2013), Headlands Center for the Arts (2006, 2015), the Banff International Jazz Workshop (2000), and the Painted Bride Arts Center (2000). She holds an MA in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley (2003), and a BA in music from the University of Virginia (1997). She has performed at countless Bay Area venues including Intersection for the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SFMOMA, Yoshi's, the Jazzschool, and the de Young Museum, San Francisco; as well as the Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle; the Montreal Jazz Festival and Victoriaville Festival de Musique Actuelle, Canada; the Monterey Jazz Festival, CA; Moers Festival, Germany; and Novara Jazz Festival, Italy.

Lisa has been awarded grants by the MAP Fund, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Composers Forum, the City of Oakland, Meet the Composer and Southern Exposure/the Andy Warhol Foundation. She performs as a sideperson in original jazz, improv and chamber ensembles led by estemmed bandleaders and West Coast musical visionaries, like Phillip Greenlief, Aaron Novik, Beth Custer, Randy McKean, Marco Eneidi, Vijay Anderson, Aaron Bennett, Myles Boisen, Steve Adams, Graham Connah, Jon Raskin, Cory Wright and Ross Hammond, and collaborates often with Darren Johnston, Vinny Golia, Katy Stephan, Aram Shelton, Kjell Nordeson, Murray Campbell, Jason Levis, Dina Maccabee, Noah Phillips, Rob Ewing, Kasey Knudsen, Myles Boisen, Sam Ospovat, John Hanes, and many many others."