Paul Clift (b. 1978 in Melbourne) is a composer of instrumental and mixed music. Since 2016, he is based in Basel, Switzerland. His music often attempts to make concrete associations with a variety of concepts such as modernist literature, collective memory and historical musical traditions, notably through the integration of archival recordings in his works. His compositional outlook is marked by formative studies with Franck Bedrossian, George Benjamin, Jean-Luc Hervé, Fred Lerdahl, Philippe Leroux, Fabien Lévy and Tristan Murail. 

His music has been programmed at festivals including ISCM World Music Days (Tallinn), Agora and Festival Ensemble(s) (both in Paris), Weimarer Frühjahrstage für zeitgenössische Musik, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, ReMusik (St. Petersburg), MATA (New York), Rainy Days (Luxembourg), Musikfestival Bern, SMC Lausanne, Koper Biennale (Slovenia), Close Encounters (Georgia), Ultima (Oslo), Unerhörte Musik (Berlin), Klangraum (Stuttgart), AFEKT (Berlin/Tallinn), Sounding Now (Singapore), Music and Art: Sound Correspondences (Spain), SMC (Athens) and the World Exposition in Milan, among others, and has been performed by ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble l'Itinéraire, JACK and Mivos Quartets, L’Instant Donné, Contrechamps, ICE, Ensemble l'Imaginaire, Proton, Neofonía, Novel Ensemble Modern, Adapter, Vortex, Argento, TAG, Trio Sæitenwind, Sentieri Selvaggi and Vertixe Sonora. In 2019, his large-scale scenic work “Portal Fantasies,” composed in collaboration with cultural historian Barbara Piatti, was premiered at the Zeiträume Biennale für neue Musik und Architektur in Basel. 

Paul Clift obtained a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Columbia University, New York, a Masters of Music at King's College, London, and participated in the two years of the IRCAM Cursus, culminating in the premiere of “With my limbs in the dark” for chamber ensemble, electronics and augmented dancer, composed in collaboration with choreographer Alban Richard. He also attended masterclasses including Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, Centre Acanthes, Domaine Forget, IMPULS, June in Buffalo, MATRIX, Internationale Sommerakademie der MDW and the Darmstadt Ferienkursen. 

Paul Clift is the Artistic Director of Ensemble Recherche. His scores are published by Schweizer Musikedition and are also available online at www.babelscores.com.

Huihui Cheng’s works have been performed in international festivals. She expands notions of interpretation and conceptual art through visual and theatrical elements, random operations, and the use of objects and multimedia. In 2011 she won first prize at the International Isang Yun Competition with her orchestra piece “shining”, and with her piece “Me Du Ça”, she has won the Giga-Hertz Production Prize of ZKM and SWR Experimentalstudio in 2016.​ She has published a portrait CD at WERGO / Zeitgenössische Musik 2020.​

Yoshiaki Onishi is a Japanese-American composer, conductor, and clarinetist. As a composer, he is interested in exploring a wide range of instrumental timbres and finding ways to incorporate them in musical syntaxes and forms that disrupt the sense of expectation. He has worked on commissions that have come from such festivals and organizations as Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Takefu International Music Festival, and Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and his music has been performed by ensembles worldwide, including New Japan Philharmonic, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Nieuw Ensemble, Distractfold Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Quatuor Diotima and JACK Quartet. He is the recipient of the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2018 Fromm Commission, and the Gaudeamus Prize 2011. Edition Gravis in Berlin, Germany publishes his music. As a conductor deeply engaged in promoting the music of today, he is Co-Director for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and was one of the founding members of Ensemble Exophonie Tokyo. Other ensembles he has worked with as a conductor include Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, ECCE Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Columbia University Orchestra and the University Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Missouri. Increasingly active as a clarinetist and improviser, he has collaborated with composers George Lewis, Carolina Heredia, Oswald Huỳnh, Bret Bohman, and Andrew Crossley. Together with Santiago Beis, he plays in the Onishi-Beis Duo, an electroacoustic improvisation duo. Onishi received his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University in 2015. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of Delaware School of Music. 

Profile Photo © 2015 by Stefaren.

new album "Delicious" released on 16 May. New Amsterdam records.

Alex (1990),"A riotous overabundance of love and rage..an extraordinary experience” The Wire Magazine, is an award-winning composer & improvising-trombonist based in the UK. His Music is published by Ricordi (Berlin). "highly innovative...of exceptional creative imagination and musical energy, packed with life force unlike anything else” BBC Magazine Ivor Novello British Composer Awards.

Alex has been awarded the Paul Hindemith Prize, and Ivor Novello Composer He was nominated for the Gaudeamus Award for 2022 and was elected to the 9th International Composition Seminar and awarded a commission ILOLLI-POP for Improviser and Ensemble which he played with Ensemble Modern. He has been awarded by the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future commission CANDYFOLK- SPACE-DRUM  and has won the RPS Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, DANKWORTH JAZZ prize for composition BYE and was made a London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composer. Alex played and recorded his concerto OD ODY PINk’d for Jazz Musician and Royal National Scottish Orchestra (RSNO). He was a Leverhume Art Scholar with the London Philharmonic Orchestra 2016-2017: NOW WE ARE DUH-DUR and has been awarded the Harriet Cohen Memorial Music Award for his compositions. His piece SPAKE represented the UK in the Orchestral section of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM). He is a commissioned contributor to John Zorn’s Arcana X 2021. "Paxton is a system-crasher of genre, who merges jamming video game soundtracks, musical overtures, virtuoso chamber music and jazz improv into an unmistakable style...highly complex, sophisticated and extremely entertaining, virtuoso ad absurdum" Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik

His albums to date as a composer: MUSIC for BOSCH PEOPLE and iLOLLI-POP released to critical acclaim on Birmingham Record Company/ NMC label and nonclassical. Listen Pony Label (TELLSONG), Indigne de nous on Everest Records and leading Spotify playlists. HAPPY MUSIC for ORCHESTRA released on Delphian Label in  April 2023. “This is the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!”New York Times

His music has been played/recorded/ commissioned by leading orchestras and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), Philharmonia Orchestra, AskSchöenberg, Riot Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, Wigmore hall, Explore Ensemble, Klammer Klang, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), National Youth Orchestra (BBC proms 2021), Making Music (UK), Ensemble x.y, x.y Song, Hyper Duo, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO), National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK) NYJO, Listen-Pony, Aldeburgh Festival, Psappha Ensemble, Orion Symphony Orchestra OSO, Helios Collective, Chaos Collective Orchestra, Mirrors of Hall Big Band, Dr. K Sextet, 5KBrass Quintet, RAM Philharmonic and RCM Philharmonic and soloists Zubin Kanger, Tabea Debus, Beibei Wang, Patrick Terry, David Zucchi. “This is what an orchestra can be like in the 21st century: an ensemble that speaks with one voice yet also gives voice to each of its members” The Times

He has written six operas including NOGGIN and the WHALE (Massed forces including 500 young instrumentalists and singes) FOR the LOVE of THORNSTIEN SHIVER hosted by English National Opera and Helios Collective, BEL and the DRAGON as part of the Tête à Tête opera festival, the EQUIVOCAL HARRIET BOWDLER at Second Movement Opera and WOOLF MUSIC at the Forge in Camden and RAVEN’s CHILD for Jacob Colier and Orchestra.
“Operatic Game Boy music played by a virtuosic motley crew that’s inexplicably been hired to provide live jingles for a primetime TV show sometime in the recent past that never quite was” Point of departure

As an improvising and jazz trombonist Alex has played as a soloist with Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta,  Riot Ensemble, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), & ensemble x.y. He is founder of Dreammusics ensemble and performs regularly with pioneering improvisers (eg: Charlotte Keeffe, Steve Noble). “meticulously scored…seems to change with every bar, enfolding bite-size pieces of classic minimalism, brass brand tradition, electronic noise, & video game plasticity..intensely virtuosic and giddily joyful. electronically slathered trombone…Paxton is a monster improviser …connects his garrulous attack to the most extroverted playing of George Lewis & Roswell Rudd..." Bandcamp Daily Best Contemporary Classical.

Extensively, Alex writes art-music for musicians in community settings including, innovative ways of writing for young instrumentalists & singers in a post-Roald Dahl world of new-music.  eg: NOGGIN and the WHALE (Massed forces including 500 young instrumentalists and singes), Fly Like a Kitchen, Muffin, Pudding Tummy and The Sound of Magic. He is professorial composition staff at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and has worked as lead-composition tutor (and workshop leader) on the National Youth Orchestra GB, he has taught/ lectured at composition and improvisation at conservatories including, RAM, GSMD & RCM (and multiple universities in the UK). “one of the most exceptional voices from a new generation of UK talent” The Philharmonia Orchestra

Alex studied as a scholar at Royal Academy of Music (BMushons1stclass)and LRAM (Distinction) and the Royal College of Music (MComp Distinction).“a Brit who defies every conceivable genre boundary…an extremely modern and future-oriented style.” Paul Hindemith Prize winner 2023

Alex is an endorsee solo artist with Micheal Rath Trombones since 2023 (R12 nickel bell & tuning slide).

Evan Johnson [b. 1980] is an American composer whose music focuses on extremes of density and of reticence, of difficulty and of sparsity, and on hiding itself. 

His music has been performed throughout North America, Europe and beyond by leading ensembles such as Musikfabrik, ELISION, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Trio Accanto, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Riot Ensemble, EXAUDI, and many others, as well as a wide variety of international soloists.

His work has been programmed at many international festivals of contemporary music, including the Lucerne Festival, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Milano Musica, Ultraschall (Berlin), TRANSIT (Leuven), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht), Klangwerkstatt Berlin, London Contemporary Music Festival, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäße Musik, and others, featured on the Monday Evening Concerts series in Los Angeles, and heard at such venues as Miller Theatre (New York) and London’s Wigmore Hall. Portrait discs are available on Kairos, all that dust, and Another Timbre, with others forthcoming; recordings of individual works are available on HCR, Metier, New Focus, Label Musikfabrik, and Wergo. Selected scores are published by Edition Gravis (Berlin).

Also active as a writer on contemporary music, Johnson has contributed to Tempo, Contemporary Music Review, MusikTexte, Music Theory Spectrum, GroveMusic Online, and NewMusicBox, and provided booklet essays for discs on the Mode, NEOS, NMC, Metier, and Kairos labels with music by Peter Ablinger, Joanna Bailie, Aaron Cassidy, Einar Torfi Einarsson, Andrew Greenwald, and James Weeks.

He holds degrees in composition from SUNY Buffalo and Yale University, and has lectured widely on his own work and taught composition, analysis and orchestration at SUNY Buffalo, Northeastern University, and Harvard. He lives in Amsterdam and in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife and two small children.

Tana Quartet – Redefining the String Quartet

Bold, innovative, and deeply committed to contemporary music, the Tana Quartet pushes the boundaries of the string quartet repertoire. Renowned for their collaborations with leading composers of our time, they explore new sonic landscapes and embrace cutting-edge technologies, from amplified strings to their own TanaInstruments.

Winners of prestigious awards and regularly featured on major international stages, Tana Quartet is dedicated to sharing the music of today while staying rooted in the rich tradition of string quartet playing. Their performances blend precision, passion, and a spirit of adventure, making each concert a unique experience.

Discover their latest projects, recordings, and sonic explorations right here on SoundCloud

Germany-based Contemporary Music Ensemble
*** Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize 2024***

The Frankfurt, Germany-based Broken Frames Syndicate plays contemporary music and brings holistic concert experiences to the stage. The ten of us show alternatives to the usual and stand up for the critical examination of socially relevant topics. Our focus is on collaboration with young composers, through which we commit ourselves to the diversification of the contemporary classical scene. The conceptual depth of our programming is the core of our vision. With new formats, we use music to tell stories, inspire discussions, think outside the box, and invest in new ways of thinking. In doing so, we consciously free ourselves from outdated structures and dogmas of the music business. Founded in 2018 after our time at the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt, we now play in varying formations and regularly perform in concerts and at festivals in Germany and abroad. Recent invitations include Mixtur Festival in Barcelona, the Harvard Group for New Music residency, and Beethovenfest Bonn. Broken Frames Syndicate has been awarded the Ensemble Prize 2024 of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and was supported by the InSzene program of the German Music Council.

Yu Kuwabara is following