Sean Katsuyama: A native of Dayton, Ohio, he began his cello studies at the age of fourteen. Within five years he enrolled at The Juilliard School, where he earned both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees as a student of Harvey Shapiro. His other teachers have included Orlando Cole and Channing Robbins. As an orchestral and chamber musician, he has performed throughout the world including the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, as well as at festivals in Israel and Canada, working with numerous renowned conductors including, Michael Tilson Thomas, Christoph Eschenbach and Gerard Schwarz as well as numerous appearances at Alice Tully Hall and other prominent venues in New York City. He has been actively involved in performing twentieth-Century repertoire and has had the privilege to work with composers such as Toru Takemitsu and Lukas Foss. His recordings include a CD of original piano trio arrangements entitled "Concierto para Trio" with colleagues Albert Tiu and Joseph Esmilla, released by Northbranch Records. Mr. Katsuyama has performed with the Long Island Philharmonic and Pacific Music Festival as principal cellist, and most recently as a member of the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Greg Giannascoli: Marimba artist Greg Giannascoli was a winner of the 2001 Artist International New York Recital / Young Artist Competition and was also top prizewinner of the 1997 Patrons of Wisdom International Young Artist Competition held in Toronto, Canada. He has also won several other solo and concerto competitions. Greg has performed as a soloist with orchestras and in recital throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has performed recitals in Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Theatro Juarez in Mexico, the Glenn Gould Studio in Canada and at the 2005 Percussive Arts Society International Convention. Greg's performances have been presented on CBC and NPR radio and PBS TV. Greg is a strong advocate of Akira Miyoshi's music and has also collaborated with Tokuhide Niimi and Toshi Ichiyanagi. "Giannascoli's performance of Miyoshi's works was nothing less than astonishing, both in terms of artistry and virtuosity ... tremendous facility ... startling display of clarity and precision."-Splendid Music Magazine.

Greg is currently teaching undergraduate and graduate applied percussion at New Jersey City University. He has presented master classes at some of the top music schools including the Juilliard School and The Manhattan School of Music. Greg performs exclusively on the Yamaha 6000 marimba and 2700 studio vibraphone, uses Innovative Percussion mallets and Sabian cymbals. His new CD, Hammer, with major solo works for marimba, was just released.

Matthew Gold: Matthew Gold is a member of the percussion trio TimeTable, the Glass Farm Ensemble, and the multi-media chamber group Sequitur. An advocate of new music, he has performed frequently with the New York New Music Ensemble, the Ahn Trio, the SEM Ensemble, New Juilliard Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Alarm Will Sound, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, and has been a member of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. He is the principal percussionist of the Berkshire Symphony and was the percussionist for the Lincoln Center Theater production, The Light in the Piazza. He has been a featured performer and given masterclasses at festivals including the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at the Mannes College of Music and at the Juilliard School Summer Percussion Seminar. Mr. Gold is an instructor of percussion at Williams College where he also directs the Williams Percussion Ensemble.

Tamara Hardesty: Tamara Hardesty, soprano, is described by James R. Oestreich of The New York Times as "a particular joy, singing with a clear, agile soprano and spinning out the coloratura with ease," and Andrew Porter wrote in the New Yorker that she "gave pleasure in many gentle, fluent, well-shaped passages."

Ms. Hardesty has performed leading operatic roles with such opera companies as Connecticut Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera's Merola program and Western Opera Theater Tours, Whitewater Opera in Indiana, Sorg Opera in Ohio, Lake George Opera in New York, Sarasota Opera in Florida, and L'Opera Francais de New York, Dicapo Opera, and Bronx Opera in New York City. She recently made her Kennedy Center debut performing the soprano solo in the Monteverdi Vespers with the Washington Chorus. She has also been a featured soloist in oratorios and concerts with the Westchester Oratorio Society in New York, the St. Joseph Symphony in Missouri, the Oskaloosa Symphony Orchestra and the Ottumwa Symphony Orchestra in Iowa, and the Haddonfield Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey. She has given lieder recitals in New York City at Steinway Hall, Klavierhaus, Yamaha Studios, St. Peter's Church, St. Paul's Chapel, and in Boston at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Ms. Hardesty was active in singing charity benefiting victims of the September 11th tragedy.

While continuing her performing career in concert and opera throughout the country, Ms. Hardesty is on the voice faculty at New York University Steinhardt School Music Department and for the Department of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connecticut, and maintains a private studio in Connecticut. Ms. Hardesty earned her Bachelor's Degree from Manhattan School of Music and her Master's degree from Curtis Institute of Music. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree (DMA) at the University of Connecticut.

Masayo Ishigure: Masayo Ishigure began playing the koto and jiuta shamisen at the age of five in Gifu, Japan. Since arriving in New York City in 1992, Ms.Ishigure has performed. at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall-Weill Recital Hall, BAM, Merkin Hall, Trinity Church and other venues in the NY city metropolitan area. She has been a guest artist with NY City Ballet Principal Dancer Mr.Peter Boal, and with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Ishigure has also performed in Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, Russia, Belarus, and throughout the United States. She has participated in music festivals in Holland, Germany, France and Thiland.

In 2005, she recorded koto music for the soundtrack of the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" with Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams. Her recent engagements include an appearance as a guest soloist of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and at Asia Society t. Since 1992, Ms.Ishigure has been teaching koto and shamisen in the music department of Wesleyan University (CT) as an artist in residence where she formed the Wesleyan Koto Ensemble.

Her recordings include a solo album "Grace," released in 2001, and a compilation "Hayao Miyazaki" anime songs by East Winds Ensemble, released in 2004.

Blair McMillen: Blair McMillen has established himself as one of the most versatile and sought-after pianists today. The New York Times has called his playing "lustrous," "riveting," and "prodigiously accomplished and exciting." Recent performances include the Moscow Conservatory, Carnegie's Weill Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University, Caramoor, Miller Theatre, the Minsk (Belarus) Conservatory, and concerto appearances with American Ballet Theatre at City Center in NYC. His solo playing has been broadcast on "CBS-Sunday Morning," NPR, Fuji-TV, WQXR, and WNYC.

Dedicated to new and groundbreaking projects, Blair McMillen is committed to the performance of the music of today. He has worked closely with composers John Harbison, George Crumb, Lee Hyla, Conrad Cummings, Annie Gosfield, Adam Silverman, Jon Magnussen, George Perle, Bernard Rands, Michael Torke, Thomas Ades, and Ned Rorem. In February 2004 Mr. McMillen presented a recital on Miller Theatre's 15th-anniversary series "Piano Revolution," juxtaposing the piano music of Luciano Berio and Giacinto Scelsi to rave critical reviews.

A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. McMillen has performed at the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, with tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, the New York Woodwind Quintet, and with members of the Brentano, American, and Flux String Quartets. He was recently named pianist for the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players. In addition to frequent performances with them in the United States, he joined Da Capo for residencies and concerts at both the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory and the Minsk Conservatory in 2003. Other collaborations include the New York-based experimental ensemble Avian Orchestra, the Eos Orchestra, the Locrian Chamber Players, the Amelia Piano Trio/"East Meets West," Jose Limon Dance Company, and the New Juilliard Ensemble, to name a few.

A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. McMillen holds degrees from Oberlin College and the Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, he won the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and received the Sony ES Career Grant for Musical Excellence, a career-advancement award given to outstanding Juilliard musicians. He was the only unanimously-chosen winner in the forty-year history of the National Young Artists Competition, and was a winner of the Time-Warner Award at the Aspen Music Festival, where he held a performance fellowship for three years. Blair McMillen has recorded for Koch International, CRI, Midnight Productions, Connoisseur Society, Albany, and BMG/Catalyst.

Airi Yoshioka: Airi Yoshioka has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Canada. Deeply committed to chamber music, Ms. Yoshioka is the founding member of the Damocles Trio and Modigliani Quartet and has performed and recorded with the members of the Emerson, Brentano, and Arditti Quartets. Damocles Trio's debut disc of complete Piano Trios and Piano Quartet of Joquín Turina has won a four-star rating from the BBC Music Magazine, Le Monde de la Musique and Diapason.

Her orchestral credits include performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Sinfonietta and engagements as concertmaster and soloist with the Manhattan Virtuosi and concertmaster of one of the festival orchestras at the Aspen Music Festival. An enthusiastic performer of new music, she was one of the original members and concertmasters of the New Juilliard Ensemble and has performed annually in the school's FOCUS! Festival as well as with Continuum, ModernWorks, Azure, Son Sonora and Ruckus ensembles. Of a performance with the New Juilliard Ensemble, the New York Times wrote, "Airi Yoshioka played the violin solo touchingly."

While at The Juilliard School, she was a winner of the concerto competition and holds MM and DMA from the school. She currently teaches at University of Maryland Baltimore County as Assistant Professor of Violin.

Sachiko Kato, piano, Artistic Director of Weaving Japanese Sounds: Recently featured in the Juilliard centenary publication, "Dance Drama Music: 100 Years of the Juilliard School," as one of the 100 outstanding alumni, pianist Sachiko Kato has enchanted audiences all over the United States with her beautiful sonorous sound in a wide range of repertoire. A winner of the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition and the Pro-Piano Recital Series Audition, Ms. Kato has performed extensively both as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Japan even since a debut recital at Carnegie Weill Hall in 1994. She has been also heard at the Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall and Performing Arts Library, Steinway Hall in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum, Norris Theater of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, and Old First Church and Crocker Art Museum in San Francisco, LiveArts in Massachusetts, Arcady Music Festival in Maine, among others. Her pianism has been feature-broadcasted by KMZT FM and WKCR FM. Her performances have won such critical acclaim as: "Kato plays with finesse and a lovely, delicate touch," and brings "interpretive clarity" with "impressively crisp fingerwork and consistent energy." (New York Concert Review)

A passionate proponent of contemporary music, she has founded the Weaving Japanese Sounds concert series in New York in 2003 to help facilitate cultural exchanges between Japan and the United States. Since then, she has championed the works of many Japanese composers through her eclectic programming. In the coming season, she will be presenting a solo recital devoted to the new music of Japan and America in the Evolution Series, a unique cutting-edge concert series at the Phoenix Hall in Osaka, Japan.

Her most recent CD, "Sachiko Kato at Fazioli Concert Hall," which was recorded in Sacile, Italy, and contains the works by Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Takemitsu, and others will be released by the PianoCulture label in the summer of 2007.

Moto Osada: Japanese composer Moto Osada's music has been described as "individual and original" by the German newspaper Frankfuter Rundschau and "fascinating" by the New York Concert Review. Increasingly in demand, his works have been heard in such countries as the United States, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Japan. Current projects include Four Nights of Dream, a chamber opera written for Sweden's International Vadstena Academy and a commission by the Scandinavian contemporary music ensemble the peärls before swine experience, both scheduled to be premiered in Sweden in 2008 and 2007 respectively.

Highlights of recent seasons include a June 2006 performance of Mifune by Paul Neubauer of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and, in February 2004, the premiere of Kaguyama Dance was presented to great acclaim by the noted Katz-Shteinberg Duo at New York's Weill Hall. During the 2004-2005 season, Osada's JoHaKyu was presented as part of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Double Exposure series. Also notable was the April 2003 concert at New York's Klavierhaus devoted entirely to Osada's music and a live radio broadcast in 2002 of violist Shmuel Katz's performance of Mifune at the Jerusalem Music Centre. Honors include grants from the Japan Foundation, ASCAP, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust, and the American Composers Forum. Mr. Osada has been invited to attend several prestigious residencies, notably the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy in 2006.

Somei Satoh: Somei Satoh was born in 1947 in Sendai (northern Honshu), Japan. He began his career in 1969 with "Tone Field," an experimental, mixed media group based in Tokyo. In 1972 he produced "Global Vision," a multimedia arts festival, that encompassed musical events, works by visual artists and improvisational performance groups. In one of his most interesting projects held at a hot springs resort in Tochigi Prefecture in 1981, Satoh places eight speakers approximately one kilometer apart on mountain tops overlooking a huge valley. As a man-made fog rose from below, the music from the speakers combined with laser beams and moved the clouds into various formations. Satoh has collaborated twice since 1985 with theater designer, Manuel Luetgenhorst in dramatic stagings of his music at The Arts at St. Ann's in Brooklyn, New York. Satoh was awarded the Japan Arts Festival prize in 1980 and received a visiting artist grant from the Asian Cultural Council in 1983, enabling him to spend one year in the United States.

He has written more than thirty compositions, including works for piano, orchestra, chamber music, choral and electronic music, theater pieces and music for traditional Japanese instruments.

Toshi Ichiyanagi: Born in 1933 in Kobe, Japan, Toshi Ichiyanagi studied composition with Kishio Hirao and John Cage, and piano with Chieko Hara, Barnhard Weiser and Beveridge Webster. After attending the Julliard School of Music and the New School for Social Research in New York between 1954-60, he returned to Japan in 1961, and introduced many new musical concepts, including Cage's idea of indeterminacy, exerting a strong influence on the direction of Japanese contemporary music.

As one of the leading composers in Japan, Ichiyanagi has composed in most genres of music: operas, orchestral, chamber and instrumental works. Among his major works are his Violin Concerto "Circulating Scenery" (1983), Piano Concerto No.2 "Winter Portrait" (1987) and Opera "Momo" (1995), based on a novel by Michael Ende. While composing these large-scale pieces, he also became known for his compositions using Japanese traditional instruments such as sho and gagaku ensemble. Many of them have been performed throughout the world, especially by the Tokyo International Music Ensemble - an organization where he serves as Artistic Director.

Ichiyanagi won the Elizabeth A. Coolidge Prize (1954) and the Serge Koussevitzky Prize (1956) during his studies in New York. He was also a member of Fluxus. Since his return to Japan, he has received numerous awards including the prestigious Nakajima Kenzo Award (1984), the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Government (1985) and Grand Prix of the Kyoto Music Award (1989). In 1990, he was awarded the Otaka Prize for the fourth time, for his unique symphony "Berlin Renshi".

Akira Nishimura: Born 8 September, 1953, Osaka; studied composition and music theory on a graduate course at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music 1973-1980. While at the university, he also studied Asiatic traditional music, religion, esthetics, cosmology, and the heterophonic concept, etc., all of which has had a lasting influence on his music to the present day.

Nishimura has been awarded a Grand Prix for Composition at the Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition in Brussels, The Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award (Milan), three Otaka Prizes, and four other national prizes in Japan. He has also served as the Composer in Residence of the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa; Musical Director: Hiroyuki Iwaki, 1993-94; and, the Composer in Residence of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra; Musical Director: Kazuyoshi Akiyama, 1994-97.

In recent years, Nishimura has been commissioned from many overseas music festivals and performing bodies such as ULTIMA Contemporary Music Festival, Oslo, Octobre en Normandie, Rouen, Arditti String Quartet, Kronos String Quartet, ELISION ensemble, Hanover Society of Contemporary Music, etc., and his new works were performed at WIEN MODERN, Vienna, Warsaw Autumn, Warsaw, MUSICA, Strasbourg, Brisbane Festival of Music, Brisbane, etc.

Nishimura is at present a Professor at the Tokyo College of Music, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Japan Federation of Composers.

Mari Takano: Mari Takano got her first piano lessons from her mother at the age of three and wrote her first composition at five. After completing composition studies under Mutsuo Shishido at the Toho Gakuen College of Music, she went on to study in Germany at the College of Music, Freiburg, under Brian Ferneyhough, and at the College of Music and Performing Arts, Hamburg, under Gyorgy Ligeti. She graduated in 1988.

Since the 80's, Mari Takano has been awarded numerous prizes. Encouraged by Gyoergy Ligeti, she overcame Avantgarde influences and developed her own original style. In 2002, BIS released a CD devoted to her works ("Women's Paradise", BIS 1238), which earned international acclamation and has been broadcasted in several countries of Europe, in the USA and Australia. In the same year, she stayed three months as a guest composer at the North-Western University (USA) on a scholarship by the Japanese Education Ministry. Mari Takano has received numerous commissions for new works, for example from the City of Hamburg (1993 and 1995), from the American Embassy in Tokyo (1995), from the Kanagawa Arts Festival (1997) as well as from various performers. She teaches as assistant lecturer at the Toho Junior College of Music and at the Joshibi Highschool of Art and Design.

Dai Fujikura: Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1977. Since coming to London at the age of 15, he has studied at Trinity College of Music with Daryl Runswick, the Royal College of Music with Edwin Roxburgh, supported by the PRS, and King'sCollege London with George Benjamin.Despite his youth, Fujikura has already gained international recognition by winning a number of prestigious prizes:- 1st Prize in the Serocki International Composers' Competition (1998), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Young Composers' Award (1998), 2nd prize in the Toru Takemitsu Award (2003) and the Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize (2004), as well as being supported by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Most recently he was awarded the Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize (the Claudio Abbado composition award).Fujikura has received support from a wide variety of eminent musicians including Peter E?s, who acted as his mentor during the London Sinfonietta'sinnovative Blue Touch Paper scheme. Blue Touch Paper, an 18-month project, resulted in the work Fifth Station, premiered in February 2004 by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Martyn Brabbins.E'shas continued to encourage Fujikura, and in October 2005 conducted the world premiere of Vast Ocean for trombone, orchestra and live electronics, with the Hilversum Radio Orchestra and Experimentalstudio Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung, at the prestigious Donaueschingen Music Days festival.Pierre Boulez has also supported Fujikura, and conducted the world premiere of the Lucerne Festival Academy'scommission, Stream State for orchestra, at the Lucerne Festival in September 2005. This followed a commission by the Ensemble InterContemporain for code 80, written for Boulez' 80th birthday celebrations and first performed in the presence of Boulez at the Cite la Musique, Paris. Other recent premieres include But, I fly for 12 voices, premiered by Vox Humana at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan in November 2005 and Eternal Escape for cello performed in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's "Music Now" concert series, May 2006. Fujikura made his BBC Proms debut with Crushing Twister in August 2006, a BBC commission for the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Charles Hazelwood. Many top contemporary ensembles and orchestras have commissioned and performed Fujikura's works including Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble InterContemporain, I.C.E. Chicago, Sofia Philhamonic and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Future commissions include two major works for the Ensemble InterContemporain, a work for horn and ensemble for BIT20, Norway, an orchestral work with electronics for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and IRCAM, and a piano concerto for the Philharmonia.