Kosi is a passionate storyteller with a penchant for content strategy and narrative design. He is driven by a sincere desire to effect positive change in digital media publishing and holds a B.A. in Transmedia Storytelling, a major he created through the Individual Studies program at the University of Maryland - College Park. He is currently pursuing an M.S. in Media Management at The New School.
Nick Dunston is an acoustic and electroacoustic composer, improviser, and bassist. An “indispensable player on the New York avant-garde" (New York Times), his performances have also spanned a variety of venues and festivals across North America and Europe…
Ishmael Ali is a first generation Filipino-Arab-American cellist, guitarist, improviser, composer, and electronic artist currently residing in Chicago. His work centers on exploring sound through improvisation, experimentation, collaboration, as well as a wide array of idiomatic approaches in an ever-changing, always-growing list of projects with diverse focuses and influences.Though varying drastically from group to group, a common thread in his work is the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate elements to create something new: both foreign and familiar.
Shane Simpson (https://www.shanesimpsonpiano.com) is a pianist and keyboardist of jazz and experimental music and a devoted music educator. His eccentric solo EP My Digital Wife (2021) highlights his digitally processed “cyborg piano music” alongside novel acoustic piano performances. Shane’s piano playing can also be heard on the soundtrack to popular virtual reality game I Expect You to Die 2…
Andres Abenante is a guitarist and recording engineer based in New York City. He was born in Venezuela and studied at the New England Conservatory, where he received a Masters in Jazz Performance. He is concerned with finding novel ways to play the guitar, interested especially in the physical limitations of the instrument…
Travis Bliss is a Brooklyn based saxophonist, improvisor, and composer from Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. As an avid historian of 1920’s jazz, Travis has developed a unique saxophone style, re-purposing the wide vibrato, rhythmic sensibility and timbral nuances of the 20’s, re-contextualized for 21st century musical situations….
Priya Carlberg (www.priyacarlberg.com) is a New York City and Helsinki based vocalist/composer working mainly within the free improvising, rock and jazz scenes. Her unique sound is shaped by her exposition to a variety of genres from her classical piano studies, jazz-centric childhood to her active involvement in the rock and experimental underground scenes…
Michael Shekwoaga Ode is a student of the game. Forever. Starting at a young age behind the kit, he quickly excelled and eventually landed a scholarship to the Oberlin Observatory, where he studied under the legend Billy Hart. With focus on musicality and a dedication to serving the music, Ode has created quite the name for himself in the Jazz World and created quite the resume…
Aidan Lombard, trumpet, was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Chicago. He began playing trumpet at age 10. Lombard attended the University of Miami as a Stamps Scholar and received a Bachelor of Music degree. He later received his master’s degree from the Berklee College of Music, where he performed with the Berklee Global Jazz Institute…
Georgia Heers is a vocalist and composer residing in Harlem. She recently moved to New York City from Greenville, South Carolina, to pursue her graduate studies at The Juilliard School. She aims to dedicate her life exploring the depths of music spanning across the African Diaspora. Georgia believes deeply in the healing components of music and artistic creation to cultivate community and healing.
The Wire magazine places Sara in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.” Originally from California now a Brooklyn resident, Sara focuses on the intersections between texture, melody and the ever-expanding notion of what the bassoon is capable of in both notated and improvised music…
Aaron Edgcomb (he/they) is a composer, drummer, and percussionist from Reno, NV, currently based in Brooklyn, NY whose work appears in such contexts as improvisational music, jazz, “new music”, noise, and song. At the forefront of Aaron’s artistic practice is considering how music creates and changes ideology.
Aaron has performed in and composed for many ensembles including: the avant-rock band Clak; the solo percussion and electronics project REA; The Gown of Entry an improvisational trio that incorporates poetry; and the improvising hardcore trio Trigger. They have collaborated with such artists as John Zorn, Ted Reichman, Chris Williams, Lisa Hoppe, Adam Dunson, Joanna Mattrey, The Ladles, and Anthony Coleman.
Timothy Angulo is a drummer and composer whose music follows the lineage of Black musical innovators.
Originally from Berkeley, California, Angulo now calls two coasts home and is currently based in New York City. His teachers include Milford Graves, Michael Carvin, Ndugu Chancler, and Darcy James Argue. A glimpse of his sound can be heard in the score of Starz’s newest hit series Blindspotting.Pitchfork has lauded his “deep pocket drums'' in his collaborative endeavors. By synthesizing sounds from his wide-ranging experiences, Angulo has opened doors for himself to work with renowned artists such as Wallace Roney, Reggie Workman, Kamasi Washington, Miguel Atwood- Ferguson, Jonathan Finlayson and Marlena Shaw.
Eliza Salem is an up-and-coming young jazz drummer. She is currently based in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she is pursuing a jazz degree from the University of Michigan. Part of the next generation of improvisers, she is always working to expand her traditional and modern jazz repertoire and find ways to play “outside the box.” Salem is a Metro DC native who learned her craft in the Washington area’s vibrant musical and cultural scene under the guidance of mentors Paul Carr and Chris Allen. She draws inspiration from the broader East Coast community’s jazz tradition, and has performed at historic DC and Baltimore jazz venues such as Columbia Station, An Die Musik, the Keystone Korner, Twins, and Jojo’s. For the past two years, Salem has studied under Michael Gould and Sean Dobbins at U-M’s School of Music, and worked closely with professors Ellen Rowe, Dennis Wilson and Robert Hurst. She has performed with the University of Michigan Jazz Ensemble, the Newport Foundation’s Generations Jazz Assembly Band, and various other student groups in Ann Arbor and Detroit.
Multi-reedist and composer Jasper Dütz was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and is currently based in NYC. He began playing music at the age of seven after receiving his father’s $20 yard-sale purchased clarinet. Coming from an artistic family, he was exposed to the music of Charles Ives, Eric Dolphy, and Charles Mingus very early on. He began playing jazz in middle school after trying the baritone saxophone in band class. He currently co-leads Harlem-Based jazz ensemble "Three Hunters Trio" as well as his own quartet, and is a full time member of the grammy winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Arturo O'Farrill. He has recorded or performed with artists such as Nels Cline, Lenny Pickett, Jon Batiste and Ron Carter.
Jasper aims to project and promote creative sincerity not only in music, but in all mediums of art. As a performer, he seeks to push the boundaries of all his instruments and speak with a unique voice that can be identified as his own in any setting regardless of genre. As a composer, he chooses to write music that conveys stories that evoke feelings of nostalgia and mysticism. Outside of music, Jasper is an avid video gamer and self-proclaimed nerd who finds inspiration in nature, science, and the lore of fictitious universes (eg. Lord of the Rings, Pokémon, Star Wars). A few of his creative influences include; Hayao Miyazaki, Björk, Junichi Masuda, Yasunori Mitsuda, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Stan Lee.
Jasper attended the Los Angeles County High School for the arts where he had the opportunity of learning from and performing alongside many acclaimed jazz artists including; Herbie Hancock, Barry Manilow, Diane Reeves and Christian McBride. He then graduated from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music on a full tuition scholarship where he studied with legends such as Lee Konitz, Reggie Workman and Jane Ira-Bloom. He has since performed at many of NYC’s finest jazz clubs and regularly tours throughout the United States and East Asia.
Brooklyn, NY based saxophonist and multi instrumentalist Caleb Wheeler Curtis “lives at the junction of rigorous preparation and willingness to explore.” (Jazz Speaks).
John Dankwa is an ethnographer and performer who specializes in African music. His performance area ranges from West African traditional drumming to African pop and art music. He directs the West African Drumming and African Pop Music ensembles at Wesleyan University.
