Born in Boston, MA in 1991, Henry Fraser grew up immersed in music - singing, playing piano and cello, studying theory and ear training. He began playing the double bass at 14, sparking an interest in improvisation via the music of Charles Mingus. Fraser moved to NYC in 2014, after graduating from New England Conservatory of Music, and has been actively working in the areas of jazz, free-improv, noise, and spectral music…
Miranda Agnew is a trumpet player, composer, and improviser entering her final year of the dual degree program between Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music. She has performed and recorded original compositions with musicians from her hometown Tucson, Arizona, Boston, and Amsterdam, and recently took part in a ten day improvisation centered gathering held at the Institute for the Musical Arts. Miranda has been mentored by musicians such as Kris Davis, Vijay Iyer, Claire Chase, and Jason Palmer, and attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. In addition to performing, she taught at the University of Arizona’s summer jazz workshop and designed an educational project for highschoolers that centers women in the history of Jazz and Creative Music. She is deeply invested in building welcoming, supportive, and bold spaces for music-making, and hopes to spend a lifetime building connections to other people through art.
Isabel Crespo Pardo (they/them) is an NYC-based latinx vocalist, improviser, and composer creating art that constantly evolves to reflect the intra/interpersonal spaces they inhabit. Their practice is nourished by curiosity and (dis)comfort. Reveling in soft chaos, they embrace openness and specificity to create poetic work.
Informed by Afrological principles of drum ensemble playing, Lesley Mok performs on a percussion kit assembled especially for the ensemble. She combines bongos, cowbells, temple blocks, cymbals, and floor tom, and employs diverse performance techniques to produce a dynamic range of timbres and orchestrations. A true experimentalist, she has been mentored by Vijay Iyer, Henry Threadgill, Danilo Perez, Terri Lyne Carrington, and others.
“Biophony" is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
