John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, Jewish music, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.
Irene Louise Rosnes, known professionally as Renee Rosnes, is a Canadian jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Raymond Eugene Premru was an American trombonist, composer, and teacher who spent most of his career in London, England.
Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist, improviser and bandleader. She was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has been a resident of New York City since 1998. She won Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022 and was named Pianist of the Year for 2023 in the international critics poll of Spanish jazz publication El Intruso. NPR’s Kevin Whitehead has encapsulated the distinctive character of Courvoisier’s art this way: “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”
Brooklyn Jazz Underground is a jazz association founded in Brooklyn, New York, in 2007. The association was formed by ten musicians to promote their work. In 2008, Anne Mette Iversen and Alexis Cuadrado of the Brooklyn Jazz Underground started the sister company, the record label Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records.
George Letellier is an American jazz pianist and composer, currently living in Luxembourg.
Jesper Lundgaard is a Danish jazz bassist, bandleader, composer and record producer. Since his debut in the mid-1970s, he has been among the most prominent bassists in Danish jazz and as a sideman he has appeared on more than 400 albums both with Danish and leading American jazz musicians.
Svante Henryson is a composer, cellist, bass guitarist and double bassist, active within jazz, classical music, and hard rock.
Maria Baptist is a German musician and professor.
Brooklyn Rider is an American string quartet, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, whose members include violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas. They are mainly known for playing unusual and contemporary repertoire, and for collaborating with musicians from outside the classical music sphere. The quartet has founded the Stillwater Music Festival in 2006 to serve as a place to unveil new repertory and collaborations; the festival's last concerts were held in 2015. Brooklyn Rider also spends time teaching, including past residencies at Denison University, Dartmouth College, Williams College, MacPhail Center for the Arts, Texas A&M University and University of North Carolina.
Valerie Coleman is an American composer and flutist as well as the creator of the wind quintet Imani Winds. Coleman is a distinguished artist of the century who was named Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the year and was listed as “one of the Top 35 Women Composers” in the Washington Post. In 2019, Coleman's orchestral work, Umoja, Anthem for Unity, was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Coleman's Umoja is the first classical work by a living African American woman that the Philadelphia Orchestra has performed.
Timothy M. Ries is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate/conservatory level. Ries is in his eighteenth year as a professor of jazz studies at the University of Toronto. His universe of work as composer, arranger, and instrumentalist ranges from rock to jazz to classical to experimental to ethno to fusions of respective genres thereof. His notable works with wide popularity include The Rolling Stones Project, a culmination of jazz arrangements of music by the Rolling Stones produced on two albums, the first in 2005 and the second in 2008.
Ohad Talmor is an American/Swiss jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, conductor and arranger.
Kris Davis is a Canadian jazz pianist and composer.
Vidar Johansen is a Norwegian jazz musician, music arranger and composer.
9 Horses is a chamber jazz group from the United States consisting of composer and mandolinist Joseph Brent, violinist Sara Caswell, and bassist Andrew Ryan, originating from New York City.
Joshua Ginsburg is an American jazz bassist and composer. He has toured internationally with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jeremy Pelt, George Colligan, Logan Richardson, Sachal Vasandani, and Helen Sung. He has performed with Tom Harrell, Mulgrew Miller, Mark Turner, Robert Glasper, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Aaron Parks.
Alf Erling Kjellman was a Norwegian jazz musician, organizer and composer.
Jeremy Siskind is an American pianist, composer, and educator known for his innovative blending of jazz and classical music.
