Brooklyn-based percussionist, composer and improviser Deric Dickens divides his time between the improvised and creative music scene and the indie rock scene in NYC. Dickens has toured, recorded and performed for many years with Robinella (Columbia Records) Daniel Carter, Aaron Quinn, Jaimie Branch, John Ralston, Russ Lossing, Caroline Davis, Eli Wallace, Eriika Dicker, Ben Cohen, Ted Brown, and Brad Linde, and has worked on soundtracks for James Schamusʼ Indignation, D.W. Youngʼs Too Cold to Swim, as well as many other indie films and T.V. projects.

Thea Mesirow is an NYC-based cellist, composer, and writer, a member of The Nouveau Classical Project, a founding member of CMA grant recipients Quartet121, and one-half of Berrow Duo. Hailed as “hypnotic” and “engaging” by Cleveland Classical, Berrow Duo has been presented by Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, the 2018 NYU Music Conference, the SENSE Concert Series, and the Mise-En Place Curator Series. As a soloist and chamber musician she has worked with composers such as Reiko Füting, Michael Pisaro, and Sofia Gubaidulina and regularly performs at venues throughout New York City including Roulette, Lincoln Center Atrium, and National Sawdust. Her 2019/2020 season included the Actualizing Communities project, which involved commissioning new works by Wandelweiser community composers, such as Antoine Beuger and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, and performing these new works within the composer’s communities in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Haan, Germany. Thea completed her Masters at the Manhattan School of Music in May of 2017 where she studied with Fred Sherry.

Abby Swidler is a composer, violinist, violist, and vocalist whose work appears in many contexts including new music, improvisational music, and song.

Abby is a passionate collaborator, frequently performing with ruby, a song collaboration with kim mayo; Xanthoria Quartet, a string quartet which performs new and old works ; Italian film-score band Tredici Bacci; and The Jessica Pavone String Ensemble, among other projects across genre lines.

Originally from Missoula, MT, they live in Brooklyn, NY.

Matt Evans is a composer and percussionist who produces acoustic and electronic music, cross-disciplinary performances, and sculptural sound installations through an experimental, ambient adjacent, eco-fictional lens. His work utilizes aqueous, drum-driven, hypnotic soundscapes and cathartic, embodied improvisatory performances to question the unknowable and absurd nature of our experience.

Tristan Kasten-Krause is a bassist and composer living in Brooklyn, NY, creating immersive, extensive and transcendent sound worlds. His music has been described as “heavenly” (the Guardian), “beguilingly frictionless” (Steve Smith) and full of “beautiful, unearthly soundscapes” (WNYC’s New Sounds).

Mikael Darmanie has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, Russia and the Caribbean. Recent festival appearances have included: The Weil Institute at Carnegie, Trinity Wall Street, Prototype, Bang on a Can Marathon, Close Encounters With Music, Berkshire High Peaks Festival, Cape Cod Symphony Nth Degree, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the Mozarteum, Mainly Mozart, and L’Acadèmie de Musique de Sion.

Lester St. Louis is a New York City-born and based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and curator. Lester has worked in, performed and created in artistic environments in The United States, Canada, South America, Europe and China with groups and artists such as Dré Hočevar Trio, Jaimie Branch Fly or Die, Ensemble Adapter, TAK Ensemble and many more. As a composer, Lester has been commissioned by artists such as the JACK Quartet, Mahan Esfahani and Stefan Jackiw, RAGE THORMBONES, Lauren Cauley and others. In the near future Lester will be continuing to develop groups such as MADD (with Dré Hočevar and Leafar) as well as TRANSFER (with Jordan Balaber, Daniel Brew and Rocío Bolaños) along with many new ventures.

Noah Becker is an alto saxophonist, clarinetist and composer based in New York. His recent activity includes releasing The Hollow Count with his band Underthought, his first record as a leader, and performing an album release show at The Jazz Gallery; releasing Retumbra, the eponymous debut from a band he co-leads; recording his third record, soon to be released as part of Henry Threadgill’s Baker’s Dozen initiative, for which Noah will also serve as a producer…

Brooklyn based bassist / composer Ben Rolston is an accomplished and compelling performer in an eclectic range of musical styles. Ben has performed with important musical voices like Marcus Belgrave, Laurence Hobgood (Kurt Elling), Tim Ries (Rolling Stones), Dwight Adams (Stevie Wonder), Vincent Chandler, Marcus Elliot, Michael Malis, and Nick Dunston, and at world-class venues like The Newport Jazz Festival, Birdland, The Jazz Gallery, Roulette Intermedium, and The Green Mill. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ben attended The University of Michigan to study with master musicians such as Robert Hurst and Geri Allen. Immediately after graduating in 2012, Ben released his debut album Fables, described as “full of grandeur and dissonance” and “find of the week” by Dave Sumner (eMusic Contributor). Since moving to NYC in 2017 Rolston has presented three new bands, each in a different stylistic realm, and helped put on a monthly concert series with POLYFOLD (an arts non-profit Ben helped to found) featuring some of the best improvisers NY has to offer.

Brooklyn-based composer Sana Nagano has a highly distinctive approach to violin playing, grounding chaotic improvisations with restrained precision. Formally trained in both jazz and classical traditions, she rips up the rulebook with projects such as the avant-bluegrass trio Astroturf Noise and 2021's Smashing Humans, which bears the name of her explosive prog-jazz quintet.

“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.

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 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 (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 (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 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 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 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.

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 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…