"Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz (born 1975 in Brooklyn, NY) is an American bassist and oud player who has recorded and performed extensively with Cyro Baptista's Banquet of the Spirits, Daniel Zamir's Satlah, Rashanim, and Pharaoh's Daughter, and John Zorn. Blumenkranz studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the Rimon School of Music in Israel, and holds a B.A. in Performance from Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 2012 he released the first album under his leadership Abraxas: Book of Angels Volume 19 featuring compositions by John Zorn."

David Buchbinder is a trumpeter, composer, producer and bandleader whose work bridges jazz, klezmer, world music and cross-cultural performance. A central figure in Canada's adventurous Jewish music scene, he founded the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and later led projects including Odessa/Havana, where Jewish and Afro-Cuban traditions meet through expansive ensemble writing and improvisation.

Daniel Freedman is a New York-born drummer and percussionist associated with jazz, world music and the downtown creative scene. Known for his work with Anat Cohen, Omer Avital and the group Third World Love, Freedman brings a broad rhythmic vocabulary shaped by jazz drumming, Middle Eastern traditions, African diasporic grooves and exploratory ensemble playing.

Yosef Goldman is a vocalist, rabbi, educator and ritual artist whose work centers on sacred Jewish song, prayer and communal singing. Drawing on Mizrahi and Ashkenazi traditions, he co-directs the Rising Song Institute and works in musical settings that connect spiritual practice, healing, text and collective voice.

Aaron Johnston is a drummer, percussionist, producer and multi-instrumentalist best known as a member of the Grammy-nominated New York band Brazilian Girls. His playing combines live drumming, electronic programming and wide-ranging global influences, giving him a flexible rhythmic voice across pop, dance, jazz, world music and experimental song forms.

Mathias Kunzli is a Swiss-born drummer, percussionist and composer active in New York and Los Angeles. A versatile performer across jazz, rock, world music and experimental projects, he has worked with artists including Regina Spektor, Lauryn Hill, Moby, John Zorn, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and many others, while also composing for film, television and multimedia.

"Brian Marsella is an emerging artist in the improv music community. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Brian learned music by ear at age three from listening to his father, an amateur jazz musician, play the saxophone and vibraphone. His first music loves were Tchaikovsky, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Scott Joplin. At five, Brian started to study classical piano and gave his first public performance. Most of Brian's childhood was filled with the struggle of learning music and the exhilaration of performance. At age eleven, Brian had has first professional "gig." Throughout his teen years, Brian performed extensively around the Philadelphia area in a myriad of settings. A friendship at that time with Philadelphia bassist, Lance Walker, whom had worked with Patti LaBelle and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, opened Brian to the world of R&B, blues, funk, and fusion, working with bands The Dukes of Destiny, The Elgins, and countless others. While doing club dates at night and weddings on the weekends, Brian kept up his classical career as well. At fourteen, Brian was the music director, conductor, and harpsichordist for the New Hope Performing Arts Festival's production of Mozart's opera, Bastien and Batienna, which received rave reviews. At sixteen, Brian gave his first full length concert at The James Lorah House, in Doylestown, Pa. The concert included works of D. Scarlatti, Chopin, Brahms and the world premier of Peter Cody's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. Throughout this time, Brian was studying classical piano with master, David Ancker.

Brian went on to study composition at the Westminster Choir College, and piano performance at The Juilliard School and The Peabody Conservatory, having studied with teachers such as David Dubal and Robert MacDonald. After a year hiatus from music, Brian moved to NYC and received his BFA in jazz performance from the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. There he studied with Richie Beirach, George Garzone, Reggie Workman, Junior Mance, Joanne Brackeen, and LeAnn Ledgerwood.

Since 2000, Brian has been a busy performing and recording artist, playing around the world with some of the world's finest musicians. Brian has been a member of Brazilian percussionist, Cyro Baptista's internationally acclaimed band, Beat the Donkey, since 2004. With Beat the Donkey, Brian has performed throughout the US and Europe, having played Central Park Summer Stage, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Bethel Woods Jazz Festival, and the Planet Arlington World Music Festival. This past year, Cyro and Brian have collaborated in forming the band, Vira Loucos, with bassist, Shanir Blumenkrantz and drummer, Tim Keiper. The group has played Tonic, The Jazz Standard, and MOMA, to frenzied audiences. Their debut album will be out this fall.

Brian is also a founding member of long-time band of friends, Caveman. Caveman has played over 300 shows in the US and Canada, including performances at the 2002 Endless Mountain Music Festival, 2003 New Orleans Jazz Festival, and Camp Bisco VI. Caveman has self-released two albums, 'Before the World' (which features a track with friend, Matisyahu) and 'totem'. Brian has also toured with Tzadik recording artist, Eyal Maoz's, 'Edom'. With Edom, Brian has performed at The New York City Winter Jazz Festival, The Montreal Jazz Festival, and the oy!hoo festival in NYC. The group will be recording a new album for Tzadik this year and will be performing in Russia this fall. Brian's other touring and recording credits include work with artists: Billy Martin, G. Calvin Weston, Marshall Allen, Odean Pope, Dave Fuszinski, Anat Cohen, Byard Lancatser, Jamaladeen Tacuma, Matisyahu, Trevor Dunn, Mary Halvorson, Briggan Kraus, Romero Lubambo, D.J. Logic, Taylor McFerrin, George Garzone, Rick Iannicone, Elliot Levin, Warren Oree, Dennis Irwin, Jason Smart, Edmar Castenada, Stephen Bernstein, Jon Madof, Erik Friedlander, Ches Smith, Baye Kouyate; and groups: Mad Cow, Big Tree, Leana Song, Pharoah's Daughter, UB313, Chris Tunkle Band, Circuit Breaker, Mother of All Bombs, Brentwood Estates, Exoskeleton, and Group Therapy."

Tal Mashiach is an Israeli guitarist, bassist, bandleader and composer whose background moves between classical guitar, jazz double bass and contemporary creative music. Raised in the Galilee, he began classical guitar as a child, later receiving recognition in Israeli competitions and scholarships before developing a wide-ranging career as both a bassist and guitarist.

Daphna Mor is an Israeli-born recorder player, flutist, vocalist and ney player whose work spans early music, Middle Eastern traditions, contemporary music and cross-cultural performance. Based in New York, she has appeared as a soloist and ensemble musician across Europe, Israel and the United States, bringing historical wind instruments into both classical and adventurous world-music settings.

Omer Mor is a multi-instrumentalist and producer heard here on nylon-string guitars, vocals, bass, whistle, keyboards, handclaps and percussion. Closely involved in the realization of Songs of Desire, he helped shape the album's long-developing Song of Songs project into its final recorded form, supporting Basya Schechter's vocal and textual vision with layered instrumental detail.

"Violinist and composer Meg Okura is the latest winner of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC) Fundamental Freedoms Commission Prize. The New York Times called her music "grandiloquent beauty that transitions easily from grooves to big cascades to buoyant swing"(Giovanni Russonello), Meg Okura is the leader and the founder of the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble based in New York. A Tokyo native, Okura is a Grammy-nominated violinist and award-winning composer based in New York. She toured Asia as the soloist and concertmaster of the Asian Youth Orchestra in her teenage years. Her journey in the U.S. began with a solo concerto debut at the Kennedy Center in 1992 with the late Alexander Schneider's New York String Orchestra. She earned B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School in violin performance, where she studied the violin with Lewis Kaplan and Masao Kawasaki, chamber music with Robert Mann, Samuel Sanders, and Seymour Lipkin, and was the concertmaster of the Juilliard Opera Orchestra. She has performed at esteemed venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Barbican Hall in the U.K., Village Vanguard, Blue Note Tokyo, Hollywood Bowl, and numerous international jazz and Jewish music festivals.

"As a violinist, she has performed and recorded with many jazz greats, including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, and Tom Harrell. She also toured Japan and the U.S. with the late Michael Brecker's Quindectet with musical director Gil Goldstein. Okura has contributed to over 100 projects, including film, TV, live videos, and albums with artists like David Bowie, Diane Reeves, JC Sanford, Erica Seguine, and Emilio Solla y La Inestable de Brooklyn, earning her a Grammy nomination as a violinist.

Dubbed "the queen of chamber jazz" by All About Jazz, Ms. Okura leads her Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble, appearing in its hometown of New York at Birdland Jazz Club, Blue Note, Knitting Factory, Roulette, Dizzy's JALC, Winter JazzFest, as well as Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., K.L. Jazz Festival in Malaysia, and sold-out concerts in Japan.

Ms. Okura has released seven albums under her name, and "Lingering" her duo project with pianist Kevin Hays was released on May 10, 2024. Her 10-piece Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble's highly anticipated fifth album, featuring Randy Brecker is to be released later this year. In 2018, Meg placed No. 6 Jazz Violinist in the International Critics Polls.

Meg Okura and the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble have released four critically acclaimed albums: a self-titled debut album (2006), Naima (2010,) Music of Ryuichi Sakamoto (2013), and Ima Ima (2018), chosen the "Best Releases of 2018" by Dan Bilawsky on All About Jazz as well as the New York Times Editor's Pick, and her release of 2018 NPO Trio Live at The Stone (Sam Newsome, Jean-Michel Pilc, Meg Okura) was Bandcamp's Best of March 2018.

Okura is also the musical director and arranger of the Sakamoto Tribute Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to performing works by composer Ryuichi Sakamoto who passed away in 2023. She is also a classical chamber musician, touring and recording with such artists as cellist Dave Eggar and clarinetist Tasha Warren, playing anything from Dvorak to Messiaen to Okura. [...]"

David Poe is an American songwriter, vocalist, producer and composer whose work spans solo albums, film, television and dance. Known for sharply crafted songs and broad collaborative reach, Poe has released multiple albums under his own name, toured internationally, and contributed music to projects involving major songwriters, performers and choreographers.

Avi Fox-Rosen is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist active in rock, Yiddish music, klezmer, theater and improvised music. His work often connects contemporary Jewish culture, language, memory and political imagination, moving fluidly between song-based projects, collaborative performance and new settings of Yiddish text.

"Basya is most widely and wildly known for composing for her groundbreaking ensemble Pharaoh's Daughter, a 7 piece world music ensemble that travels effortlessly through continents, key signatures, and languages with a genre-bending swirling neo hasidic chanting sound. Basya Schechter�s earthy, soulful beautiful voice rings out over instruments that form a vibrant collage of East/West, old/new, Ashkenazi and Sephardic enlivened by flutes, electronica and strings.

Performing with some of the best downtown jazz and world music players, jam world, psychedelic sounds..Shanir Blumenkranz on Bass, Yuval Lion on drums Brian Marsella - keys, Daphna Mor, winds, Meg Okura, violin, Mathias Kunzli on percussion. Her performances broke out of the NYC scene only, and combined her love of traveling with her love of music, taking her concerts on the road, through Greece, Eastern Europe ,UK, ISrael, South America and all over the United States.

The band explores traditional, while staying contemporary, the meditative yet ecstatic. Her musical journey began in her home in Boro Park in a melodic cacophony of singing shabbat songs in harmony while hammering out rhythm on gefilte fish jars and kiddush cups. After she left her ultra orthdodox background, she found herself searching and hitchhiking through Israel, Africa and the Middle East. To mimic the incredible musical sounds she was hearing she began re-tuning her guitar to sound like a cross between Arabic oud and Turkish saz, which inspired harmonic minor melodies, and unfamiliar odd time grooves. A liminal expression began to emerge over which she sang and composed in a style that resonated with hasidic klezmer, folk, classic rock, worldbeat and other jewish music, yet was of a bigger world. Pharaoh�s Daughter has recorded five albums with her family of downtown NYC stand out musicians, as well as another two albums under her own name, Songs of Wonder, and Queen�s Dominion. Two projects in collaboration including Darshan with hip hop artist Eprhyme. Some of her favorite venues included Central Park Summer Stage, Lincoln Center�s Damrosch Park, Joe�s Pub, The Stone, Mercury Lounge and City Winery, and the dusty fork in the road between Columbia, Brazil and Peru called Letitia/Tabachinga. PD has been featured on NPR�s PRI and they have been guests on John Shafer�s New Sounds numerous times� She has been recipient of numerous grants including NYSCA, American Composers Forum and Sparkplug. Residencies at Blue Mountain Center and Rising Song Institute have nourished her growth. They are slowly finishing a new album called �Songs of Desire,� a collection of texts culled from �Song of Songs..� - texts which investigate the story, the power and the mystery of love and desire. After being ordained as a Hazzan in 2016 and while working at Romemu NYC full time over nearly a decade she began seeding some collaborations on her �Wendesday - day off!� and at the same time helping to pioneer its first satellite community in Brooklyn Romemu."

Eleonore Weill is a French-born, Brooklyn-based vocalist and multi-instrumentalist known for soulful interpretations of Yiddish, East European and French traditional music. Performing on voice, flutes, accordion, piano and hurdy-gurdy, she works across klezmer, Romanian, Occitan and Jewish song traditions with a sound rooted in memory, migration and communal music-making.

Ben Zwerin is a French-born, New York-based bassist, producer, mixer and writer whose work crosses jazz, soul, world music and singer-songwriter settings. The son of trombonist and writer Mike Zwerin, he has performed and recorded with artists including Lizz Wright, Angelique Kidjo, Lila Downs, Lionel Loueke and Claudia Acuña.

"Yuval Lion has toured and recorded with some of the world's most distinguished rock, pop, r&b and jazz artists including Chrissie Hynde, Suzzane Vega, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Trixie Whitley, Meshell Ndgeocello, Chocolate Genius, Lionel Loueke, Marc Ribot, John Zorn and Moroccan singer Hyndi Zahra. A native of Tel Aviv, Lion has toured and recorded with Israel's top artists including Danny Sanderson, Alon Olearchik, Danny Litany, Eran Tzur, Korin Alal and Bat Sheva Dance Company. He has appeared on numerous prime time television shows backing up Israel's top artists and bands. After receiving a scholarship from the Berklee College of Music he relocated to Boston in 1997. He is currently based in New York City where he is in high demand as a session drummer.

For his solid groove and exceptional tone Lion is sought after by today's leading music producers including VIctor Van Vugt (NIck Cave, Chrissie Hynde, PJ Harvey Beth Orton), Dave Sitek (TV on The Radio, The Yeah Yeah Yeah's) Hector Castillo ,Bjork, David Bowie), Andres Levine (David Byrne), Gerry Leonard (David Bowie,Suzzane Vega), Thomas Bartlett (Doveman,The National, Trixie Whitley). Lion tours internationally with acclaimed singer/songwriter Martha Wainwright with whom he recently appeared on NBC's Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

He currently plays with uber cool New York based band Cibo Matto, NY guitar trio Big Lazy and David Byrne's New York Public Theather production Joan Of Arc-Into The Fire. In addition to worldwide tours Lion maintains a high profile in New York City's live and studio scene."

Tamer Pinarbasi is a Turkish kanun virtuoso and a member of the New York Gypsy All-Stars. Recognized for bringing a highly personal, modern approach to the zither-like instrument, he works across Turkish, Balkan, jazz and global-fusion settings, expanding the kanun's role through speed, lyricism and improvisational intensity.

Uri Sharlin is an Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based accordionist, pianist, composer and arranger. Active across jazz, world music, theater, film and song, he has worked with artists including Antony and the Johnsons, Natalie Merchant, Avi Avital and Frank London, and has appeared as both performer and composer in a wide range of New York creative-music contexts.

Rich Stein is a New York percussionist and drummer whose work has moved through jazz, improvisation, world music and song-based ensembles. A flexible collaborator in the city's creative music scene, he has appeared in projects that combine rhythmic drive with visual art, dance, vocal music and cross-cultural instrumentation.