Jen Shyu ("Shyu" pronounced "Shoe" in English, Chinese name: 徐秋雁, Pinyin: Xúqiūyàn) is a groundbreaking, multilingual vocalist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, 2019 United States Artists Fellow, 2016 Doris Duke Artist, and was voted 2017 Downbeat Critics Poll Rising Star Female Vocalist. Born in Peoria, Illinois, to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, Shyu is widely regarded for her virtuosic singing and riveting stage presence, carving out her own beyond-category space in the art world. She has performed with or sung the music of such musical innovators as Nicole Mitchell, Val Jeanty, Sumi Tonooka, Linda Oh, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Bobby Previte, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek and David Binney. Shyu has performed her own music on prestigious world stages such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, Ojai Festival, Ringling

A Stanford University graduate in opera with classical violin and ballet training, Shyu had already won many piano competitions and performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto (3rd mvmt.) with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra by the age of 13. She speaks 10 languages and has studied traditional music and dance in Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor and Indonesia, conducting extensive research which culminated in her 2014 stage production Solo Rites: Seven Breaths, directed by renowned Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho. Shyu has won commissions and support from NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, MAP Fund, US-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship from Japan-US Friendship Commission and National Endowment for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works, Exploring the Metropolis, New Music USA, Jazz Gallery, and Roulette, as well as fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Program, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Yaddo, MacDowell, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Korean Ministry of Sports, Culture, and Tourism.

Shyu has produced eight albums as a leader, including the first female-led and vocalist-led album Pi Recordings has released, Synastry (Pi 2011), with co-bandleader and bassist Mark Dresser. Her critically acclaimed Sounds and Cries of the World (Pi 2015) landed on many best-of-2015 lists, including those of The New York Times, The Nation, and NPR. Her last album, critically acclaimed Song of Silver Geese (Pi 2017), was also included on The New York Times' Best Albums of 2017.

Even with the acclaim she has received for her recordings, Shyu is just as renowned for her dynamic performances. Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times that her concerts are "the most arresting performances I've seen over the past five years. It's not just the meticulous preparation of the work and the range of its reference, but its flexibility: She seems open, instinctual, almost fearless." Her duo performance with Tyshawn Sorey was among The New York Times' Best Live Jazz Performances of 2017. Larry Blumenfeld wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "her voice, a wonder of technical control and unrestrained emotion, tells a story dotted with well-researched facts and wild poetic allusions. She claims both as her truths."

Currently based in New York City, Shyu is a Paul Simon Music Fellows Guest Artist and is co-founder with Sara Serpa of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a radical model of mentorship for women, non-binary, and underrepresented composer-performers around the world. She premiered her last solo work Nine Doors in 2017, kicking off a 50-state U.S. tour of "Songs of Our World Now / Songs Everyone Writes Now (SOWN/SEWN)," planting seeds of creativity and threading communities together through art and cultural exchange. She's currently touring her third solo production Zero Grasses commissioned by John Zorn across all 50 states and has received wide critical acclaim for her latest album Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, with "When I Have Power" on Nate Chinen's "Best Songs of 2021" list for NPR. Jen is a renowned educator and has moved her teaching studio to her Patreon since the start of the pandemic. Jen Shyu is a Steinway Artist.

Her current instruments in performance include piano, violin, Taiwanese moon lute (2 strings), Chinese er hu (2 strings), Japanese biwa (4 strings), Korean gayageum (12 strings), Korean soribuk (drum), and Korean gong called "ggwaenggwari."

Graham Haynes(born September 16, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York raised in Hollis , Queens , NY) is an American cornetist, and composer. His two years at Queens College (1978-1980) studying composition, harmony and theory spurred his interest in classical and electronic music (Robert Moog was professor of electronic music at the time). Haynes became a disciplined student , studying trumpet and jazz harmony privately with Gillespie alumnus Dave Burns while playing in the Pentecostal church. The son of jazz drummer Roy Haynes,[1]Graham is known for his work in nu jazz, fusing jazz with elements of hip hop and electronic music.

With aspirations to push jazz beyond its traditional boundaries, Graham Haynes' first foray into electronic music came in 1979 upon meeting alto saxophonist Steve Coleman. Together, they formed a band called Five Elements, which launched an influential group of improvisers called M-BaseCollective. After the formation of his own ensemble – Graham Haynes and No Image – and the subsequent release of an album (What Time It Be?),Haynes would spend the balance of the 1980s studying a wide range of African, Arabic and South Asian Music. After a move to Paris in 1990, Haynes incorporated these far-off influences into his next two releases –Nocturne Parisian and Griot's Footsteps.

Haynes returned to New York City in 1993 to take advantage of the flourishing Hip-Hop scene; and the resulting album was the sample heavy Transition. After the release of yet another hybridized album – 1996's Tones For The 21st Century– Haynes discovered drum 'n' bass and began working with some of the genres finest DJs and producers in London and the U.S. This manifested in the release of 2000s BPM, a fusion of drum n' bass beats with the classical music of Richard Wagner.

Over the years, Haynes has kept busy with several critically acclaimed multimedia projects, composed the score for films Flag Wars and The Promise, and lectured at New York University, while receiving two nominations for the prestigious Alpert Award For The Arts. He has collaborated with artists such as Roy Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Vernon Reid, Meshell Ndegeocello, The Roots, David Murray, George Adams, Ed Blackwell, Bill Laswell, Steve Williamson, and Bill Dixon.

Since 2013 Haynes has been a member of the Vijay Iyer Sextet. He is most recently featured on Vijay Iyer's 2017 ECM album, Far From Over. Graham tours annually in Europe, Asia, Brazil and Africa and has appeared several times on national tv. He is in high professional demand as a musical director and composer for film, theatre, dance and multimedia .

In 2003 Graham lectured at New York University on the subject of Music and Trance .
2009 Master Class New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
2010 Taught as adjunct professor The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music .
2013 Guest lecturer Columbia University on composition.
2013 Workshop Città Biella , Italy
2013 Taught masters classes and lectured Banff Creative Centre ,Banff, Alberta,Canada
2014 Guest lecturer at University of Bahia , Brazil
2018 Taught masters classes, lectured and guest conducted Banff Creative Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada

In 2017 Haynes had two of his classical chamber works, String Quartet no.1 and Prelude and Fugue for 5 Flutes, performed at Roulette NYC for the Interpretations series. He is currently working on new chamber music works. He has performed over a period of several years with the late Lawrence D. Butch Morris, inventor of Conduction, and has begun working with ensembles using the Conduction method. Conduction ensembles include the Nublu Orchestra, Banff Student Orchestra and the Haynes Flute Ensemble

Pianist-composer Sylvie Courvoisier, a native of Switzerland, has earned just renown for balancing two distinct worlds: the deep, richly detailed chamber music of her European roots and the grooving, hook-laden sounds of the downtown jazz scene in New York City, her home for more than two decades.

Few artists feel truly at ease in both concert halls and jazz clubs, playing improvised or composed music. But Courvoisier – "a pianist of equal parts audacity and poise," according to The New York Times – is as compelling when performing Stravinsky's iconic Rite of Spring in league with flamenco dancer-choreographer Israel Galván and pianist Cory Smythe as she is when improvising with her own widely acclaimed jazz trio, featuring bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

Then there are her ear-opening collaborations with such avant-jazz luminaries as John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Ellery Eskelin, Susie Ibarra, Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Feldman, Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley and Mary Halvorson.

In music as in life, Courvoisier crosses borders with a creative spirit and a free mind; her music-making is as playful as it is intense, as steeped in tradition as it is questing and intrepid. JazzTimes has said: "Courvoisier keeps you on the edge of your seat because it feels like the piano cannot contain her. Her careening solos seem to overwhelm and overflow the keyboard and keep spilling."

Her most recent albums include SEARCHING FOR THE DISAPPEARED HOUR (Pyroclastic, 2021) a duo with Mary Halvorson ; TIME GONE OUT ( Intakt, 2019), a duo with Mark Feldman; the Sylvie Courvoisier Trio with Drew Gress & Kenny Wollaen :FREE HOOPS ( Intakt, 2020) and D'AGALA (Intakt, 2018); LOCKDOWN (Clean Feed, 2021), a Trio with Ned Rothenberg and Julian Sartorius.

She currently teaches at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

The instantly recognizable style and sound of Reggie Nicholson has elevated him to one of the most distinctive, inventive and inspirational drummer/percussionist of his generation; a formidable technician, but one who uses his considerable skills constructively and with infinite taste.

Born in Chicago, his drum concept fitted perfectly the needs of many extraordinary Chicago musicians. Nicholson first gained a reputation as a drummer and percussionist in his hometown of Chicago. A Southside native, he's a graduate of Cornell Elementary, where he was playing drums for the "Area A Band" of exceptional music students and Hirsch High School, as a concert band percussionist. He then made good use of a 4-year music scholarship to Chicago State University's percussion program. During his early days before moving to NYC, Nicholson worked around Chicago with many great musicians, and performed regularly at the famous South side organ club, The Other Place. An active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1979, Nicholson has absorbed the organization's musical influences to compose and improvise original music.

Nicholson has performed and recorded with a wide variety of jazz and new music luminaries such as Jon Logan, Larry Frazier, Mendai, Vince Willis, Phil Cohran, Dewey Redman, James Spaulding, Henry Threadgill, Amina Claudine Myers, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ernest Dawkins, Leroy Jenkins, Edward Wilkerson, Jr., Hanah Jon Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Sam Newsome, Myra Melford, Wilber Morris, Elektra Kurtis, Billy Bang, Butch Morris, Yuko Fujiyama, Oliver Lake, Fay Victor, Roy Campbell, just to name a few. In addition, Reggie has toured throughout Europe and Japan.

As a composer, he was nominated twice for the Cal Arts Composition Award in 1993/1994, and his compositions were performed throughout NYC including concerts for Roulette, Interpretations, Vision Festival, and the AACM.

Nicholson's recordings, which have highlighted his compositions, are "Unnecessary Noise Allowed (1997)" features his quintet, The Reggie Nicholson Concept. "Percussion Peace"(2005) is a solo recording experimenting with electronics and percussion instruments. In 2007, the premier of "Timbre Suite" (Tone Colors) was recorded for percussion ensemble. "Surreal Feel"(2008) shows the maturity and growth of his composing skills with music for brass instruments and percussion.

"Mettle" (2018) features his second solo recording for percussion. His latest recording, "No Preservatives Added" (2020), features new compositions for percussion ensemble.

Currently, Nicholson is continuing to explore the aesthetics of his musical ideas.