Stephen Nachmanovitch performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of music, dance, theater, and multimedia arts. He is the author of two books on the creative process, Free Play (1990) and The Art of Is (2019). Born in 1950, he graduated in 1971 from Harvard and in 1975 from the University of California, where he earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness for an exploration of William Blake. His mentor was the anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States and abroad on creativity and the spiritual underpinnings of art. In the 1970s he was a pioneer in free improvisation on violin, viola and electric violin. He has presented master classes and workshops at many conservatories and universities, and has had numerous appearances on radio, television, and at music and theater festivals. He has collaborated with other artists in media including music, dance, theater, and film, and has developed programs melding art, music, literature, and computer technology. He has published articles in many fields since 1966, and has created computer software including The World Music Menu and Visual Music Tone Painter. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is currently performing, recording, teaching and writing.

Described by critic Gary Giddins as “one of the most compellingly original trombonists,” Ray Anderson is by turns a supremely lyrical player and bold texturalist, a warmly natural-sounding soloist and footloose innovator. Broadening the trombone's sonic scope with his extended techniques, brilliantly unconventional use of the plunger mute and demonstrative vocal-like tones, he played a major role in reawakening interest in the instrument in the '80s. Named five straight years as best trombonist in the Down Beat Critics Poll and declared “the most exciting slide brass player of his generation” by the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Anderson has shown remarkable range. He has led or co-led a daunting assortment of tradition-minded and experimental groups, big bands, blues and funk projects and even a trombone quartet. He is recognized as an original and compelling composer and has recorded more than 120 of his own compositions with these groups. He has also demonstrated his special supportive skills on a remarkably wide assortment of albums by Anthony Braxton, David Murray, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Henry Threadgill, Barbara Dennerlein, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, the New York Composers Orchestra, Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra and many others. Anderson is gifted teacher and has long been in demand for workshops and master-classes around the world. He has been the Director of Jazz Studies at Stony Brook University since 2003. “I love teaching,” he says. “The energy of the students and the opportunity to “pay it forward,” inspiring a next generation, make it intensely rewarding and meaningful. I always find that I’m learning as much as any of my students are.” Recent releases include “Hear You Say” The Marty Ehrlich, Ray Anderson Quartet; “Sweet Chicago Suite” for his Pocket Brass Band; “Love Notes,” a duo of standards with guitarist Steve Salerno; and “Being The Point” a quartet record by Anderson’s newest group, which features Gary Versace on Hammond B3 organ, Salerno on guitar, and longtime associate Tommy Campbell on drums. Two new recordings, “Marching On,” a solo trombone CD and “Come In” a new Pocket Brass Band CD, have just been released.