Patricia Brennan
“A vibraphonist to watch out for…” mentioned the New York City Jazz Record. Mexican born vibraphonist, marimbist, improviser and composer Patricia Brennan “has recently started to make her presence known on the New York avant-garde, working with such prominent bandleaders as Matt Mitchell and Michael Formanek.” observed The New York Times. Patricia is a member of Grammy nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble and Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus. Patricia released her debut single “Sonnet” under Valley of Search, and released her solo debut album “Maquishti” in January 2021 also under the label Valley of Search. Patricia Brennan is a Valley of Search artist, BlueHaus Mallets artist and currently teaches at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and at the Jazz Studies program at NYU Steinhardt.
Anna Abondolo
Bassist and composer, Anna Abondolo was raised in Los Angeles and currently resides in Boston. She is in her fourth year at the New England Conservatory as a jazz performance major. Anna has studied under the instruction of Donald Palma, Frank Carlberg, and John Clayton. She will be currently studying under the instruction of Anthony Coleman, Jason Moran, and John Mallia. Anna has performed with artists including Sean Jones, Dianne Reeves, and Tom Kubis in addition to her own groups and projects.
DoYeon Kim
DoYeon Kim is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning virtuoso of the gayageum (a traditional Korean string instrument). In addition to traditional Korean music, DoYeon specializes in free jazz, jazz, and improvisation. She regularly performs solo and group concerts worldwide in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America…
Zekkereya El-Magharbel
Zekkereya (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist originally from the Los Angeles Area. They are a member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and has also worked with West Coast Luminaries such as Busdriver, JMD, Trevor Lawrence, William Roper, Zeroh, MAIA, and Michael Session. They have also shown animated films internationally, most of them exploring visual music. They also make graphic scores both animated and still.
Eddy Kwon
eddy kwon (b. 1989 – aka edi kwon) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, New York). Her practice connects composition, performance, improvisation, dance, and ceremony to explore transformation & transgression, ritual practice as a tool to queer ancestral lineage, and the use of mythology to connect, obscure, and reveal.
Miriam Elhajli
Miriam Elhajli is a folk singer, composer-improviser, and musicologist whose work is influenced by the rich musical traditions of her Venezuelan, Moroccan and North American heritage. Elhajli currently lives in New York City where she performs and works as a researcher at The Association for Cultural Equity founded by Alan Lomax…
Carrie Furniss
Carrie Furniss is a critically acclaimed vocalist, educator, improviser, bandleader, and composer based in New York City. With a background in jazz, she has explored almost every genre of music through a creative, improvisatory lens, performing in jazz, rock, pop, country, and experimental groups, often contributing her own compositions. Recently, Carrie has been dedicated to the practice of home recording, production, and synthesis, culminating in the release of her first solo record on Topos Press.
Shara Lunon
Shara Lunon is a multidisciplinary vocalist based in New York City. Her artistic career leads with a Black American focus, using the full range of the voice in sound, wordplay, and visual art. Shara combines both improvised and scored vocals with intention of lyric (text and melody) over beat-heavy rhythms and ethereal ambiance. She has toured with several bands and as a soloist in South America and Europe. Shara received her undergraduate degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of Florida and a Vocal Certificate from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Shara is currently working towards her Masters in Music in Performance and Composition at the New School.
Amanda Ekery
Vocalist and composer Amanda Ekery collaborates with everyone, literally. Historians, artists, engineers, bakers, you name it. Amanda works with all to create projects that invite others to explore and share their stories. Learn more at aekerymusic.com
Weston Olencki
Weston Olencki is a musician, composer, and sound artist. Weston is currently making work centered around questions of instrumental music and its contexts/constructs, various mediated practices of listening and improvisation, and the technological, material, and cultural histories of rural space/time…
Henry Mermer
Henry Mermer (b. 1999) is a drummer, improviser, and composer of instrumental and electronic music currently based in Ridgewood, Queens. As a collaborator and improviser, he has performed at venues including The Stone, The Jazz Gallery, The Blue Note, happylucky no. 1, Spectrum NYC, Public Records, and The Bar Next Door…
Brad Linde
Hailed as "the capital city's contemporary cool king" (Giovanni Russonello, Capitalbop), Brad Linde is a saxophonist, educator, bandleader, and impresario in the Washington DC metro area. He is the director of Jazz and Creative Music at Georgetown Day School and founder of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.
Lauren Cauley
Violinist and improviser Lauren Cauley has quickly risen in New York’s avant-garde as an artist known for genre-breaking performances that expand the sonic possibilities of her instrument. Now a “mainstay of the local new-music scene” (New York Times), she’s built a reputation as an interpreter of “fierce precision” and “excellence uncompromised” (Cleveland Classical)…
Erika Dohi
Osaka-born and New York-based pianist, composer, and creative producer Erika Dohi is a multi-faceted artist with an eclectic musical background.
Michael Thomas
Saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Michael Thomas has been active in New York City since arriving in 2011. Michael has released three solo albums, and he has co-led the Grammy-nominated Terraza Big Band since its inception in 2015. According to the New York Times, Michael writes "energetic, tuneful music for both combos and large ensembles", and his compositions have been performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Japan. As a sideman, Michael has performed on Grammy-winning albums by Brad Mehldau and Dafnis Prieto, and he has had the privilege of sharing the stage with Miguel Zenón, Nicholas Payton, Etienne Charles, and Jason Palmer. Currently, Michael is an Artist Teacher of Jazz Saxophone in the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music.
Nate Jasensky
Nate Jasensky is a guitarist, composer, producer, arranger, and music educator born and raised in sunny Tucson, Arizona, and currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Nathan first started his music education at the age of three, when he was enrolled in regular music classes with musicians in the local symphony orchestra. Learning how to read music before written english, Nate quickly became proficient in the guitar and the saxophone…
Joy Guidry
Radical self-love, compassion, laughter and the drive to promote and amplify Black art-makers and noise-makers are at the core of Clifton Joseph Guidry III’s work. The New York City-based bassoonist, composer, and activist excels in many spheres, with performances hailed by the San Diego Tribune as “lyrical and haunting… hair-raising and unsettling…” Clifton is not only a versatile and acclaimed bassoonist, but they are also an improviser and composer of experimental and daring new works that proclaim Clifton’s love of storytelling. In all aspects of his work, Clifton is supporting, hiring and promoting Black artists within their practice. In honoring their ancestors and those who came before them Clifton’s compositions channel their inner child.
Kalia Vandever
Kalia Vandever is a trombonist, composer, and educator living in Brooklyn, NY. She released her debut album, "In Bloom" in May, 2019 which features all of her original compositions written for quartet and duo with guitar. She has toured and performed internationally with her quartet, as well as a side-woman. Kalia is also an active composer and arranger. She has been commissioned to write works for groups and individuals including Tesla Quartet, The Westerlies, Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, and Hats & Heels Duo.
Olivia Shortt
(They/Them: Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation) Olivia Shortt is a Tkarón:to and US-based multi/trans-disciplinary performing artist. They are a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, curator, administrator, and producer. Highlights include their Lincoln Center (NYC) debut in 2018 with the International Contemporary Ensemble, their film debut performing in Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film ‘Guest of Honour’, as well as recording an album two kilometres underground with Stereoscope in the SnoLAB (Neutrino Lab in Sudbury, Canada). Recent commissions include Long Beach Opera (Songbook 2020), the JACK Quartet (JACK Studio), a new opera for Loose Tea Music Theatre (Toronto), and Arraymusic Ensemble (Toronto, 2022). Shortt was a finalist for the 2021 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award as well as awarded and named one of the 2020 Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Emerging Queer Artists. Shortt is featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine.
Yuma Uesaka
Yuma Uesaka (b. 1991) is a saxophonist, clarinetist, and improviser-composer mostly known for his work in jazz and creative music. Since his arrival to New York City in 2014, Yuma quickly built a reputation for his tenacious yet adaptable improvisational sensibilities. As an advocate for music that celebrates modernity, hybridity, and rigor, Yuma works across diverse musical communities including jazz, creative music, and new classical music…

