Jorge Espinal (Peru/Argentina)
was born in Lima, Perú in 1982 and started playing guitar at the age of 14. As soon as he finished high school (at 17) he moved to Santiago de Chile to study audio engineering. His interest and knowledge in music grew as he played with different musicians and tried different styles. He finally found a way of mixing his eclectic likes in music and his passion for audio experimentation in the area of prepared guitar and improvisation. For the past three and a half years he’s been living in Buenos Aires, working as a sound designer and devoting himself to music. He is happy to consider himself an improvisor and wishes to continue moving in that direction. He’s attended workshops lead by Leonel Kaplan, Fabiana Galante, Jorge Mancini, Pablo Berenstein, Erika Zisa, and has been studying guitar with Juan Pablo Arredondo. Currently he plays prepared (mostly) guitar as part of a free improvisation trio called RicardaCometa, with Luciano Vitale on double bass and flute, and Tatiana Heuman on trumpet and vocals. In 2010 they were invited to play at the Tsonami Sound Art Festival in Valparaiso, Chile and have been invited to return to this year’s edition of the festival in Buenos Aires. Espinal has worked to share experiences and play with as many musicians-improvisers as he can and currently plays an active roll in Buenos Aires’ experimental scene. He’s eager to expand my horizons.

Abraham Gomez-Delgado (Puerto Rico/US)
is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Bandleader Abraham Gomez-Delgado, of Peruvian descent, left his native Puerto Rico as a child and relocated to the US. He leads the experimental Latin music group Zemog el Gallo Bueno as well as co-leads the avant-latin jazz big band Positive Catastrophe and has a Performance Art group under the name Eje. Gomez-Delgado is also a vocalist in his own compositions as well as in composer/saxophonist Fred Ho’s Green Monster Big Band. Currently he teaches Sound Art and production at Bloomfield College in New Jersey and is composing a Plena suite entitled “Debrujo, Debrooho, Debrewjo.” He was most recently been awarded a New Jazz Works grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Foundation (2010), a Meet The Composer MetLife Grant (2010), a USArtists International Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant (2010). He has been a guest lecturer/musician at Music Omi, and at Bloomfield College and Northeastern University among others. Gomez-Delgado received his MFA with honors from Bard College and holds a BFA from Mass College of Art. He has performed/exhibited at Lincoln Center, Exit Art, BAM, Montreal Jazz Festival, Cooper Arts Festival, The Blue Note, Institute for Contemporary Art Boston, Issue Project Room, The Stone, Jazz Gallery, Europa Jazz Festival, Nuyorican Poet’s Café, FITUR Madrid, S.O.B's, Joe’s Pub, The Knitting Factory, Celebrate Brooklyn, Latino Cultural Festival (Queens Theatre in the Park) Chicago World Music Festival, Milwaukee World Music Festival and elsewhere.

Dana Jessen (US)
is a bassoonist and versatile musician (b. 1983) with a concentration in contemporary and improvised music. Focused on expanding the role of the bassoon outside traditional settings, Dana has collaborated with composers, improvisers, dancers, visual artists, poets, filmmakers and chamber musicians around the world. Her strong ambitions to explore jazz and creative improvisation have led to performances with the Bik Bent Braam Ensemble, guitarist Joe Morris, reed players Michael Moore and Frank Gratkowski, and the Braam/de Joode/Vatcher Trio. She has performed at concert venues and music festivals throughout the United States and Europe including New York City’s The Stone, Berlin's Universität der Künste, Boston's Jordan Hall, Baltimore's Contemporary Museum, Amsterdam's World Minimal Music Festival, and the U.K.'s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Dana's ongoing exploration of new sound possibilities developed into a deep interest in composition. She has written acoustic and electroacoustic music with a common element of improvisation. Her recent compositions, Storm Scenes and In Flux, include an electronic component that she created by recording her own sounds and layering them into an atmospheric backdrop. Playing the role of composer-performer, Dana continues to explore new performance techniques as a bassoonist while creating adventurous new ways to communicate with audiences through composition. Formally trained, Dana holds an M.M. from the New England Conservatory of Music and is the recipient of a 2008 - 2009 Fulbright Fellowship for studies in Amsterdam where she made her home as a Huygens Foundation Fellow.

Hannah Marcus (US)
is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer/songwriter from New York City. She studied composition with Meyer Kupferman and Michael Czajkowski. She switched her emphasis to songwriting after graduating from Wesleyan; her first two albums, WEEDS AND LILIES (1995) and RIVER OF DARKNESS (1996) were produced by Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters in San Francisco, California. These were followed by two albums produced with Tim Mooney (American Music Club, Toiling Midgets) and Joe Goldring, also in California, FAITH BURNS (1998) and BLACK HOLE HEAVEN. Following BLACK HOLE HEAVEN (2001), Marcus returned to New York City, where in addition to writing her own songs, she has written film music for the PBS documentary REFRIGERATOR MOTHERS, spent some time at old time and Irish fiddle sessions, done some live film scoring, and released one album recorded in Montreal with members of Godspeed Your Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra, DESERT FARMERS (2005). She is also a member of The Wingdale Community Singers (with Rick Moody and David Grubbs) whose eponymous first album was released in 2005 and second album, “Spirit Duplicator,” just came out last November, and they are about to record a third in August. She's at work on a new project “FROM ENGLISH PLANES,” also recorded in Montreal with members of ASMZ.

Minhee Park (South Korea)
a Korean traditional music singer, was 14 years old when she started to learn Korean traditional song, attending the National High School of Korean Traditional Music, then majoring in the Korean traditional song genre called 'Gagok' at Seoul National University. With her understanding of Korean traditional music, she has been trying to apply contemporary music, dance and visual art to her performanc. She has participated in many traditional music concerts and also in contemporary music festivals (including the 2010 Schumann Fest in Germany and the Klara Festival in Belgium) In addition, she performs as a vocalist in sOo-Jung Kae's free jazz band “sOo's collage” while also creating improvised performances with many kinds of instrumentalists. She has also worked with the Eunmi Ahn Dance Company since 2007, participating in the 2009 Pina Bausch Festival in Germany, and many other contemporary dance festivals as a performer of contemporary dance works. On October 2010 she created a performance/installation exhibition to express her thought on traditional music as an interdisciplinary art.

Angelika Sheridan (Germany)
speaks through her flutes (bass and c-flute) with a unique sound language. Through the combination of traditional tone production with extended and self-developed techniques she newly defines the sound of her instrument. Sheridan works internationally as a performer of contemporary composed and improvised music. She takes part in various ensembles and projects, including many inter-media contexts involving dance and silent movies. She studied classical flute at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen and further studied improvisation and experimental music with Ran Blake und John Heiss in Boston, USA. She lives in Cologne, Germany, where she teaches at the music conservatory.

David Watson (New Zealand/US)
has worked as an experimental musician in New York City since 1987. He is a singular voice in new music, and internationally respected as a guitarist. Since 1991 Watson's work has also featured new music for the Highland Bagpipe. His work encompasses improvisation, performance and composition. Contexts include working with John Zorn, an ongoing project with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, music for film (notably contributing to Mathew Barney’s “Cremaster 3”), and composing music for choreographers. His double CD recorded for Phill Niblock’s XI label, “Fingering an Idea,” was described by The Wire magazine as “ magnificent … …nobody’s heard anything quite like it.”

Ron Warren (US)
is a remarkably versatile Echota Cherokee musician, equally at home on the powwow trail, in the concert hall and in the classroom. He has been a featured performer on Native American flutes at the National Museum of the American Indian, the Bangladesh Drishtipat Festival D.C., Flute Quest Seattle and at many other powwows, cultural venues and festivals throughout the country. His creative work has received multiple Native American Music Award nominations, an Individual Artist Award from his home state of Maryland, and has been heard on NPR, Pacifica Radio, the History Channel and numerous other media outlets.

Krischa Weber (Germany)
an improvising cellist, performs with the cello ensemble Cello en Vogue, an improvising string orchestra, and the music performance duo Marie Claire. She has developed numerous projects with visual artists and dancers, with the TonArt Ensemble created concerts with WuWei, and Tim Hodgkinson, and as a cultural manager developed musical LandArt Projects.

Maral Yakshieva (Turkmenistan/Russia)
is a bright and original composer and pianist and (b. 1968). The combination of Eastern and Western musical traditions is natural and very organic for her, and her works have been performed with great success at various concert halls in Asia, the US and Europe. An outstanding improviser as well, she has performed with many well-known musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Baby Sommer, and Markus Stockhausen. She studied music theory and piano at the College of Music in Chardzhou from 1983-87, where she graduated with a diploma of excellence, graduated from Turkmen National Conservatory with a diploma of excellence (1995, piano, composition), and completed postgraduate studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (1997, composition). She has attended master classes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg. Her honors include the Makhtumkuli State Scholarship in Ashgabat, two honorary diplomas from the Ministry of Education in Ashgabat and three grants from the Open Society Institute in Moscow. She has taken part in many festivals in Russia and abroad, including Beijing, Luxembourg, Prague and Tehran. Her double CD album “Improvisations. Duo. 2008.” with Anthony Braxton was released by SoLyd Records in 2009. She has performed classical and contemporary works and served as an accompanist at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, as an assistant teacher at the State Conservatory of Turkmenistan, and music theory teacher at the College of Music in Chardzhou. Because of her interest in the newest trends and research in contemporary music, she has taken part in musicological conferences adn conducted various research studies.