A self-taught guitar and bass player born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. He has toured with the world famous El Sistema Youth Orchestras and played with Gustavo Dudamel, Bert Joris, Fabrice Alleman, Nathalie Loriers, Gerardo Rosales’ Afro-Cuban Quintet, and Michael Simon’s group Asian Journey. Rodríguez holds BA and MA degrees in Music (Belgium) and a second MA in Jazz and World Music from Conservatorium Van Amsterdam (Netherlands). Rodríguez is co-founder of the bands R.A.M. (Rodríguez, Aksunger, Milea) Mulix, and duo project with Hungarian vocalist Artemisz Polonyi called “Light at Both Ends of the Tunnel.”

Photo Credit: Argenis Apolinario

A first generation Cuban-American who comes from a long lineage of musicians.  Mr. Avilés' family has been considered by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest, continuous musical group in the world. The Orquesta Hermanos Avilés was started by his great-grandfather, Manuel Avilés, in 1882 in Holguin, Cuba, and is still in existence today. Based in NYC, Alejandro Avilés works as an adjunct professor at both Hofstra University and Hunter College teaching saxophone and jazz improvisation while performing as a versatile musician in genres ranging from "Straight Ahead" jazz, “Brazilian” and "Afro-Cuban" music, to Broadway.

Photo Credit: Ana Paula Dan

A Bronx native and drummer. She is featured with artists across multiple genres including jazz, hip-hop, funk, rock pop and fusion genres. An alumnus of the noted LaGuardia High School for Music and the Performing Arts and the New School University, she has received awards from Jazz at Lincoln Center and BMI and she was a featured drummer in Mary Lou Williams’ Women in Jazz Festival. Lucianna’s current live and studio projects include a residency at Red Rooster Harlem with the Rakiem Walker Project, Primordial Jazz Funktet, Bertha Hope’s Jazzberry Jam, the genre-busting Stratospheerius, as well as leading her own quartet.

Photo Credit: Argenis Apolinario

A trumpet player and composer born and raised in Havana, Cuba. He has played with musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, Arturo O’Farrill, Paquito D’Rivera, Chucho Valdés, Anat Cohen, Bobby Sanabria, Cándido Camero, and Bobby Carcasses. While living in Havana, he won top prizes at the annual Jojazz contest for “Improvisation and Best Small Combo.” A graduate of the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in Cuba, he is furthering his studies at Manhattan School of Music, where he was awarded a full scholarship for Jazz Performance. Rodríguez-Peña’s style blends traditional Cuban sounds with influences from Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter.

Photo Credit: Argenis Apolinario

A multi-Grammy award winning drummer, composer and producer from the legendary rock band Living Colour. He has composed, produced and toured with Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders, The Rolling Stones, Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def, Lauryn Hill, Marcus Miller, Herb Alpert, Mike Stern, Public Enemy, and many more. Calhoun is an Ethnomusicologist, combining his ancestral research with years of commercial success in jazz, rock, urban, alternative, ambient, and other world music. He recently broadened his artistic expression to include film scores, photography and multimedia projects. Calhoun also just released a new Jazz recording “Celebrating Elvin Jones” on Motema Music.

Photo Credit: Bill Bernstein

A composer and improviser specializing in the relationship between acoustic objects and musical form. His instrumentarium includes glass objects, electronics, laptop, and constructions of his own design. Frasconi’s unique glass instruments are struck, blown, stroked, smashed and otherwise coaxed into vibration. As a composer his works include chamber music, operas, film and dance scores. Frasconi has worked closely with composers John Cage, Jon Hassell, James Tenney, and Morton Subotnick. He is a founding member of The Glass Orchestra, featuring all glass instruments and the San Francisco sound-sculpture band Möbius Operandi. He is presently a member of Ne(x)works.

Photo Credit: Marty Sohl

A student of the flute, piccolo, alto, tenor, and soprano saxophone. Achievements include: 2015 International Women in Jazz Youth in Action award, 2016 J. Marjory Jackson Scholarship, the solo award in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Essentially Ellington Regional Festival, the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Tuition Assistance Award, and the A.F.J Leonard Silver Award. She has performed with music greats Arturo Sandoval, Candido Camero, Phoenix Rivera, Bobby Sanabria, Kermit Ruffins, Bertha Hope, among others. Garo is a graduate of LaGuardia High School and is now studying at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in New York City.

Photo Credit: David Garten

A Bronx-born, award-winning MC and DJ who has been an acknowledged leader in both forms since the 1970s when he formed the Mighty Force and later joined The Cold Crush Brothers. Caz was inducted into the Technics DJ Hall of Fame and the Bronx Walk of Fame, a street plaque bearing his name is now on permanent display on the Grand Concourse. Caz currently serves as as a Board member of the Bronx Music Heritage Center, Windows of Hip Hop and The Universal Federation for the Preservation of Hip Hop Culture.

Photo Credit: Joe Conzo Jr.

An artist, producer, educator and consultant raised in New York. He co-founded Playback NYC, the first playback theater company to integrate freestyle Hip Hop. His debut solo show Boom Bap Meditations was supported by the Ford Foundation and the Hip Hop Theatre Festival. Israel is currently touring his multimedia performance The Spinning Wheel. He is a core member of Hip Hop/Soul project Soul Inscribed who recently completed the American Music Abroad program. He holds an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College and is the Co-Artistic Director of the Performance Project based at the University Settlement.

Photo Credit: Joel Chester Fildes

Consists of the Nuñez brothers Celso, Delmo, Julio, and Chester, who are percussionists and singers from Honduras, along with other percussionists. The name means “Grandchildren of Maraza” — they are the grandchildren of Marselino, one of the great paranda singers in the Garifuna tradition. In 2012, they performed with James Lovell and other Garifuna musicians at the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival called, “One World, Many Voices: Endangered Language and Cultural Heritage.” Their new CD is “Huweirigu Lun Maraza.”

Opened in 2002 as an after school program for youth of all races and ethnic backgrounds ages 4-17. It is the first school in the East Coast dedicated to educating youth in the rich Mexican Mariachi tradition. In addition to learning to play a musical instrument and to sing classic rancheras and ballads, students develop a strong sense of identity and pride. The program inspires students to become involved with their peers in a situation where they can learn to be responsible to others, set a goal, and work toward its completion.

Photo Credit: Fiamma Piacentini

Albertico Lescay is a Composer, Arranger, Trumpeter, Keyboardist, Pianist and Vocalist from Santiago de Cuba and currently living in Havana. Lescay graduated in 1998 from the National School of Art (ENA), City of Havana, Cuba. He is one of the pioneers of the Nu-Jazz and directs the Iris Jazz Club of Santiago de Cuba in Cuba. As a composer, he fuses different musical genres and manifestations of art like dance, Video, and visual art with Jazz. Some of his work has been included on soundtracks of various documentaries. He has performed in numerous concerts in venues in Cuba, Mexico, and France.

Photo Credit: Argenis Apolinario

Amy Trompetter creates giant puppet operas, outdoor pageants, and hand puppet shows. She has led communities in making large outdoor pageants and small indoor mask theater in Italy, France, Nicaragua, Mexico, Japan, Botswana, South Africa, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Burma. Amy was a professor of World Theater at Antioch, Bates and Barnard College, Columbia University, and the Bard Prison Initiative. She is founder of a puppet workshop and performing space, Redwing Blackbird Theater, in Rosendale, NY and a member of the A. J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center and End the New Jim Crow Action Network, both in Kingston NY.

Co-produced with IgniVox Productions