"Cléo Palacio-Quintin. Born Leuven, Belgium, 1971, Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (hyper-flute).

Constantly seeking new means of expression and eager to create, the flutist-improviser-composer Cléo Palacio-Quintin takes part in many premieres as well as improvisational multidisciplinary performances, and composes instrumental and electroacoustic music for various ensembles and media works. Since 1999, she develops her hyper-flutes. Interfaced to a computer by means of electronic sensors, these augmented flutes enable her to compose interactive soundscapes, combining instrumental sound and electroacoustic music, sometimes even with video. Recipients of many prizes, awards and grants, she is the first woman to receive a Doctorate in electroacoustic composition from the Université de Montréal (2012) and is a collaborator at the Center for interdisciplinary research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). Over the years her compositions have been performed in The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Canada and the USA, either by herself or various ensembles."

"Lori Freedman. Born Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1958. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (clarinet, bass clarinet)

Qualified as "a musical revolutionary in the front ranks of the avant-garde" by Alex Varty of the Georgia Straight (Vancouver), Lori Freedman (clarinets) is internationally recognized as one of the most creative and provocative performers. She is a member of a select group known as "renaissance musicians" as her artistic activities cover many fields: performer of written music (well over one hundred works have been written for or premiered by her), composer, improviser, teacher, and on occasion, writer. While managing a full performance schedule of more than 75 public appearances a year, Freedman has been receiving commissions to write music for ensembles such as Orkestra Futura, Arraymusic Ensemble, Ensemble Transmission, Continuum Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble SuperMusique, Ensemble Paramirabo, Upstream Orchestra, Queen Mab Trio, Crowbar Trio, Lott Dance, Oberlander Films, Foresite Theatre, Cooke Productions and Autumn Leaf Productions. Her current discography comprises over 59 recordings, the most recent of which include Greffes (Empreintes digitales), On No (Mode Records), Bridge (Collection QB), Plumb (Barnyard Records), 3 and À un moment donné (Ambiances Magnétiques), Huskless! (Artifact), See Saw and Thin Air (Wig). Highlight collaborations include work with Rohan de Saram, Barre Phillips, Helmut Lachenmann, Frances-Marie Uitti, Monique Jean, Joëlle Léandre, Axel Dörner, George Lewis, the Jack Quartet and Richard Barrett."

"Jean Derome. Born Montréal, Québec, 1955. esidence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (saxophones (alto, baritone, soprano), flutes (flute, bass flute, piccolo, alto flute, recorders), keyboards, small wind instruments (ocarinas, jew's harp, game calls, toys...), percussion, invented instruments, voice)

One of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome has managed to earn the recognition of a larger public, a rare feat in that field. Thanks to his large-scale musique actuelle projects, his compositions, his work as an improviser, his jazz groups and his music for the screen and the stage, Derome ranks as a major creative force, in Québec and abroad. He is experienced and innovative on both saxophone and flute, and his unique writing style cannot be mistaken for anyone else's. Sensitive and powerful, his music often features a funny strike that makes its complex nature more inviting.

Ever since Nébu (one of Québec's first avant-garde jazz groups) in the early '70s, Derome has been consistently renewing and diversifying his approach of composition. He impressed audience and critics first with the flute, then with the saxophone, as a lead character in the musique actuelle underground. He took part to the various artists' collectives looking for new ways to express themselves freely, without esthetic or social constraints, including the Ensemble de musique improvisée de Montréal. Later, in the early '80s, he co-founded Ambiances Magnétiques, a collective and record label that raised his profile at home and introduced his name to the outside world. Among his numerous projects, let us mention the duos Les Granules, Nous perçons les oreilles and Plinc! Plonc!, the dynamic group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms, and the large-scale projects Confitures de gagaku, Je me souviens - Hommage à Georges Perec and Canot-camping. Most of these projects are based on a unique form of synergy between composition, structured improvisation and genuine creative madness, all this articulated with unmatched playfulness. In 1992, Derome became the second artist to be presented with the Freddie Stone Award (bassist Lisle Ellis was the first).

Besides improvising on a regular basis with Ambiances Magnétiques' members and appearing in their projects, Derome has also shared the stage with several musicians of international stature, among others Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer, Louis Sclavis and Han Bennink. He performs regularly all over Canada, in the US and in Europe. He received a Prix Opus in 2001 for his exposure abroad.

Lately, jazz circles have been praising his undisputable qualities as a jazzman, thanks to the Thelonious Monk tribute project Évidence, the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble (whose Mingus Erectus CD is devoted to Charles Mingus' music), and the much-lauded Derome Guilbeault Tanguay Trio.

Although Jean Derome writes tirelessly for his own projects, he is much in demand in the fields of film, theatre and dance. A short list of this side of his work would have to include his numerous scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), especially for films by John Walker, Jacques Leduc, Fernand Bélanger and animated films by Pierre Hébert, Michèle Cournoyer and Jean Detheux; his incidental music for Théâtre UBU, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; not forgetting his work with several top choreographers, including Louise Bédard, Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Daniel Soulières and Ginette Laurin. Other music ensembles have commissioned works from him, including Tuyo, Bradyworks, the Hard Rubber Orchestra from Vancouver and Fanfare Pourpour. Incidentally, Derome is the musical director of the latter.

Over thirty years of music and 70 record credits later, Jean Derome still has sleeves bursting with tricks."

"Scott Thomson is an improvising trombonist and composer. He works extensively with singer and dance artist, Susanna Hood, and writes songs for her based on published authors' texts to be played in many contexts, from duo to octet and sometimes including Susanna' s choreography. Monicker (with Arthur Bull and Roger Turner), for example, exemplifies Scott's commitment to open improvisation. He co-founded the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) in 2004 and served as a director until 2009, and co- directed the AIMToronto Orchestra, formed for a project with Anthony Braxton in 2007. In 2016, he convened the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra to play Roscoe Mitchell's music. He founded Somewhere There, a Toronto creative music venue that hosted 850 concerts during his tenure, 2007-10. Scott has composed a series of site- specific works, "cartographic compositions" for mobile musicians and audiences in unconventional performance contexts including, notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Scott programs the Guelph Jazz Festival."

"A native of central Quebec, Julie Houle has been a tuba player for 15 years. She has a classical university education. She is also an interpreter-composer-arranger. Since 2007, she has devoted herself to different styles (gypsies, fanfare, pop, jazz, improvisation, etc.). In 2007 she will follow a master class with Michel Godard in Villeurbane in France. The meeting of this mentor was also repeated in France, in January 2013 for a series of courses in private.

Julie swells, by her desire to make her tuba heard, worked with artists such as; David Brunet, Marco Calliari, The Gypsies of Sarajevo, Catherine Major, Fred Pellerin, Benoit Rocheleau, Brigitte Ste-Aubin, Bernard Adamus, the Fanfarniente de la Strada, the Jarry fanfare, the Severni fanfare, Sophie Vaillancourt, etc. In addition, she now has in hand her own DJU project that offers instrumental music where the tuba is put forward."

"Guido Del Fabbro. Born Montréal, Québec, 1980. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (violin, electronics).

Born in Montréal, 1980, Guido Del Fabbro started violin lessons at age four. His taste for improvisation and composition first manifested itself around 1990; since then, he has taken several classes and workshops related to these fields. Del Fabbro is co-founder, creator and composer of Mouvement de Musique Présente, a large ensemble of up-and-coming musicians devoted to scored and improvised music. He is also a member of the groups Fanfare Pourpour, Rouge ciel and Concorde Crash. For 18 months, he toured North America with Gilles Ste-Croix's horse circus Cheval-Théâtre. As a performer, he has recorded a few soundtracks for film, television, theatre and dance. As a composer, he has written music for choreographers Élodie Lombardo (Blou take two, Gelsomina) and Séverine Lombardo (Les Accords d'elles). Del Fabbro released his first solo album, Carré de sable, in 2003, on Ambiances Magnétiques. He can be heard on the latest albums by Tomás Jensen and Loco Locass. He is an accompanying multi-instrumentalist in Pierre Lapointe's show La forêt des mal-aimés."

"Jean René. Born Victoriaville, Québec, 1956. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Performer (viola), Conductor.

Jean René has a Bachelor's degree in composition from the Université de Montréal. He has studied viola and conducting; Raffi Armenian, Michel Longtin, and Bruno Guiranna were his professors. From 1991 to 2002, he was associate principal violist with l'Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. He still freelances with a number of ensembles. Since 1990 he has collaborated with many artists, including André Duchesne, Pierre Cartier, Jean Derome and René Lussier. He also headed the group from the Ensemble SuperMusique for the Symphony of the Millennium."

"Émilie Girard-Charest. born Laval, Québec, 1987. Composer, Performer (cello).

Émilie Girard-Charest is a cellist, a composer and an improviser.

As a chamber musician, a soloist and with different ensembles (Allogène, Supermusique, La Machine, Quatuor d'occasion, Stéphane Pécas, Ensemble for New Music Tallinn, duo Collard-Neven-Girard-Charest), she dedicates herself to new music.

She has worked with many composers, including Malcolm Goldstein, Michel Gonneville, Maxime McKinley, Joane Hétu, Guillaume Primard, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Hans Zender, Graciela Paraskevaidis and Fredrik Gran.

Émilie has played at numerous festivals in Québec (Festival de musique actuelle de Victoriaville, OFF Festival de Jazz, Festival de jazz de Montréal, Festival de jazz de Québec, Montréal / Nouvelles Musiques), in the United States (Avant-Music Festival, New York), in Belgium (Ars Musica), in Austria (Klangspuren Schwaz and Impuls), in Chile (Encuentro Internacional de Compositores), in Argentina (Sonido Presente), in Estonia (Autumn Festival), in Finland (MuTe Fest), in Spain (Mixtur) and in Macedonia (Macedonian Music Days). She also played concerts in France, Germany, Russia and Uruguay.

In addition to that, she took part in various theatre and dance productions, such as Rhinocéros by Eugène Ionesco (Troupe Éponyme directed by Jocelyn Sioui), Couloir et Chambres by Philippe Minyana and La fête à Jean by Pierre-Luc Lasalle (Théâtre L'Instant, directed by André-Marie Coudou), ADN by Dennis Kelly (Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal, directed by Sylvain Bélanger), the Physical Theater Choir Project (Vicki Tansey), The Sticks (Andrew Tay) and Reine et Oiseaux (théâtre Tête au Corps, Vincent Langlois and Émilie Sigouin). She is now working on a duet with the dancer and visual artist Sarah Bronsard.

Émilie holds a degree in cello (Denis Brott) and in composition (Michel Gonneville) from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. She is now enrolled as a student in the CoPeCo program (Contemporary Performance and Composition), a joint Master involving the Eesti Muusika - ja Teatriakadeemia (Estonia), the Kungliga Musikhögskolan i Stockholm (Sweden), the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (France) and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (Germany). She is the recipient of the Bourse de développement de carrière from the foundation of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (2014) and of the Prix d'Europe of Composition Fernand Lindsay (2015).

"Vergil Sharkya'. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (synthesizer)

In 2010 Vergil Sharkya' finished a major research project in composition for his doctoral degree at Liverpool's John Moores University, developing a complete theory of hypercomposition, featuring as well examples of its practical application.

His most recent hypercomposition - aTTAK, for piano, suspended toy piano, and digital instruments -, was commissioned for and performed at the opening of the Aufbau Haus, Berlin, in September 2011.

Vergil is also a well established composer/musician in the fields of improvised music, multimedia installations, post-modernist composition, scores and soundtracks for film, theatre and dance, composition and arrangements for orchestras, soundscapes, psychedelic noise rock, drum'n'bass, dub, and even academic research.

He has released several recordings on various labels like Cuneiform Records, UKsupersonict and VergilReality Recordings.

Since moving to Montréal in July 2010, he has been working mainly but not exclusively in the field of improvised music with musicians such as Jean Derome, Michel F Côté, Simon Pagé, Augustus Martin, Ellwood Epps, Philippe Battikha, as well as with writers Martin Lamothe, and Serge Rivest Martimots. He currently spends his spare time cooking, doing housework for his lovely family and learning how to play jazz."

"Diane Labrosse. Born Montréal, Québec, 1950. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (sampler, accordion, voice).

Working mainly with electronic samplers, Diane Labrosse has a very personnal approach to sounds, exploring different textures and timbres and creating an abstract but evocative music. She is a regular on several different music scenes and has performed at internationally known festivals of musique actuelle, electronic, avant-garde and improvised music all over the world (Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, Australia).

Her most recent projects take different forms: Endangered Species, a sound and visual installation/performance based on obsolete objects such as rotary dial phones and ticking alarmclocks; Dactylotactiles, performance for 3 typewriters and live video (Sébastien Cliche); Petit Bestiaire, naïve songs for a quintet (texts by Guy Marchamps); Sagesse pratique, a series of miniature pieces based on proverbs and O.V.N.I., a sign language for an improvising orchestra of variable sizes.

As a composer, using conventionnal or graphic scores, she wrote for many different ensembles: Array Music and The Burdocks (Toronto), L'Ensemble SuperMusique and Espaces Sonores Illimités (Montréal), NOW Orchestra and 999 years of Music, (Vancouver). She also wrote for less conventionnal instruments, such as ship horns (Harbour Symphonies), train whistles, air bottles and toy pianos. She worked with director Robert Lepage and co-signed (with percussionist Michel F Côté) the music for two of his plays: La Géométrie des miracles and Zulu Time.

As sound designer, she created music for dance (Louise Bédard, Crystal Pite, Andrew Harwood, Marc Boivin, Deborah Dunn, Catherine Tardif, Harold Rhéaume, Richard Siegal), film (Montréal vu par..., Pendant que les arbres tombent, L'Entrevue, Plan de fuite) and radio (Le Navire Night, Les Décrocheurs d'étoiles) and theatre (Nuit d'orage, Je suis d'un would-be pays, Bliss, 38 Contes shakespiriens...).

She has created multimedia installations for Danish company Tura-ya-moya (in situ performances in an old chalk mine), and Scottish-based Theatre Cryptic (Wall of Secrets in situ installation for 20 speakers) as well as the Centre de Musique Canadienne (a sound garden playing ramdom sound tracks on surround speakers).

In 1980, she founded Productions SuperMémé/SuperMusique with Joane Hétu and Danielle P Roger. She remained Co-Artistic Director of this company presenting many concerts and events of innovative music from 1980 to 2008. With long-time colleagues Hétu and Roger she created the groups Wondeur Brass, Justine, and Les Poules. She collaborated with many musicians such as Jean Derome, Pierre Tanguay, Michel F Côté, Martin Tétreault, Ikue Mori, Philippe Lauzier.

Her discography comprises more than 50 recordings mostly recorded on Montreal based label Ambiances Magnétiques. She has received several grants from Canada Arts Council as well as Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec."

"Danielle Palardy Roger. Born Laval, Québec, 1949. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (drum set, electronic percussion, voice).

Percussionist, composer and improviser Danielle Palardy Roger is for the most part self-taught. Active on the Montréal "musique actuelle" scene since 1980, she co-founded the groups Justine, Wondeur Brass and Les Poules. She also founded Ensemble SuperMusique, a shape-shifting ensemble solely devoted to the performance of new music works and improvisation.

As a percussionist and improviser, her style is unique: she structures rhythm out of time, communicating a strong, complex narrative by accumulating and layering diverse gestures. She toured Canada, Europe and the United States on several occasions and appeared at several prestigious international events and festivals. In the course of her unique and resolutely independent career, she has worked and shared the stage with Alexei Borisov, DB Boyko, Christopher Butterfield, Nicolas Caloia, Paul Cram, Chantal Dumas, Christine Duncan, Lori Freedman, Fred Frith, Joëlle Léandre, Torsten Mueller, Zeena Parkins, Tenko, the VivaVoce choir, and the Quasar saxophone quartet, among others and in addition to her close collaborators from the Ambiances Magnétiques crowd - Derome, Hétu, Labrosse, Tanguay and Tétreault.

Roger's research concerns the integration of improvisation to contemporary music. In that regard, she has worked with composer Marie Pelletier and composed music for the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and for Ensemble SuperMusique - the latter a shape shifting ensemble entirely dedicated to improvised music and "musique actuelle." She wrote a Harbour Symphony in 2001 (La grande entente), commissioned by the Musée Pointe-à-Callière in Montréal. Danielle Palardy Roger has made several albums for the Ambiances Magnétiques label, including Tricotage (2000) with French bassist Joëlle Léandre, Bruiducœur, prière des infidèles, an oratorio performed live in Montréal, in June of 2004, Phénix (2008) with the trio Les Poules, and Pas de deux (2008) with British guitarist Fred Frith.

Roger is a versatile artist whose projects have consistently brought her back to text, song and declamation. She has penned a large number of songs for Wondeur Brass and Justine, but also composed a musical tale (L'oreille enflée, 1990), a musical theatre (Candide sur une toupie, 1994) and, most importantly, the solo performance Le voyage en Aphasie Mineure (1998) and the oratorio Bruiducœur, prières des infidèles (2004), two works where an exploding language represents the intense realm of communication, the core of the artist's concerns.

In juxtaposition to her music career, Danielle Palardy Roger is also general manager and artistic director of Productions SuperMusique (PSM) and is a member of the Ambiances Magnétiques label; in addition to being involved in the field of concert music she is president of the Groupe Le Vivier, which is dedicated to the founding of a place of creation, production and presentation of new music in Montréal."

"Quebec City, Québec, 1956: Composer, Performer (drum set, percussion, voice)

A percussionist, composer and inveterate inventor, Pierre Tanguay is one of the most sought-after Montréal musicians on the Quebec scene. Since the beginning of the 80s, he has participated in an impressive number of ensembles, including Jean Derome and the dangereux zhoms, Évidence, Castor et compagnie, the Jean-François Groulx Trio, the ODD (a danse orchestra), Villemure Ô Carré, the Pierre Cartier Ensemble and Projet Riel. Among his collaborators are Jean Derome, Normand Guilbeault, Pierre Langevin, René Lussier, Karen Young, Fred Frith, Michel Donato, Daniel Mille, André Duchesne and Antoine Berthiaume. He is very active in the fileds of medieval and traditional music, jazz and musique actuelle. He is the co-founder of Strada, Midi Tapant, Derome/Tanguay.

He has composed works for dance (Lucie Grégoire, Andrew Harwood, Irène Stamou and Francine Gagné), as well as works for the theatre and film (Allan Booth, Imago and Roberto Ariganello). He regularly tours throughout Canada and Europe."