Francesco Bigoni – tenor sax, clarinet

Born in 1982, Francesco has been active on the Italian scene since his early twenties, before relocating to Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009. After an irregular education, he graduated from the Soloist class at the Rhytmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen in 2012. He shared the stage with prominent musicians as Enrico Rava, Gianluca Petrella, Stefano Battaglia, Greg Cohen and Jim Black. He has been a founding member of the Italian artist collective/record label El Gallo Rojo, and is currently part of Danish ILK, appearing in over forty albums and touring extensively in many different countries. As a passionate and multifaceted wind instrumentalist and composer, Francesco pursues sound from all sides: he holds a degree in electrical engineering and is active in the field of electroacoustics and interaction design. Francesco also co-leads On Dog (with Piero Bittolo Bon, Beppe Scardino, Mark Solborg and Marc Lohr) and Crisco 3 (with Piero Bittolo Bon and Beppe Scardino); he is featured as a sideman in a number of projects led by Zeno De Rossi, Francesco Diodati, Maria Faust, Morten Pedersen, Danilo Gallo a.o.

CONTACTS: 
francescobigoni(at)gmail.com
http://francesco.bigoni.dk

Søren Gemmer (b. 1984)
Pianist and composer working as a band leader as well as a sideman. A healthy appetite for different musical expressions has led to work in modern and mainstream jazz, in free improvisation and in indie music as a synth/Wurlitzer player. The debut album AT FIRST (ILK) was released in 2013 and received widespread critical acclaim for its blend of modern jazz and a love and awe of late romantic and 20th century classical piano music. The upcoming release THE LARK (WhyPlayJazz RS028) presents an elaboration of the trademark melodicism displayed on the debut.

Bio
Born and raised near Aalborg in the Northern part of Denmark, Søren Gemmer by no means took to music early on. Being an avid personal computer enthusiast (when those where just getting personal) and an avid reader from an early age, Søren engaged in musical activity from a visual perspective, conceptualizing about music rather than paying any sort of attention by ear. Not until being caught by the allure of the rock drummer fantasy in local bands did the true emotional potential of music present itself to him. It is this duality of cognition and emotion, complexity and simplicity so to speak, and the challenge of balancing them that eventually drew Gemmer to become a musician. 

Since 2009 he has been living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is currently completing his Advanced Postgraduate Diploma specializing in adapting stylistical elements from 20th century composers Messiaen and Ligeti into modern jazz composition and improvisation. 

Collaborations and sideman appearences include live work with film maker, poet and national icon, Jørgen Leth, a raft of Danish jazz's 'Who's Who', Gilad Hekselman, Palle Mikkelborg, Thomas Agergaard and a couple of utterly coincidental, yet successful, appearences with the Danish Radio Big Band. He has studied with jazz pianists Jacob Christoffersen, Nikolaj Hess, and Anders Persson, improvisers Torben Snekkestad and Kresten Osgood, as well as renowned classical pianist and educator Anne Marie Fog.

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