GUSTAVO AGUILAR has been deeply involved in Contemporary New Music and Creative Music for decades, performing at major festivals on five continents with composers and musicians such as Ana Maria Avram, John Bergamo, Anthony Braxton, Tom Buckner, Roy Campbell, Nels Cline, Chaya Czernowin, Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser, Iancu Dumitrescu, Julio Estrada, Vinny Golia, Charlie Haden, Earl Howard, Kang Tae Hwan, George Lewis, Annea Lockwood, Park Jae Chun, Liz Phillips, Roger Reynolds, Adam Rudolph, Wadada Leo Smith, and many others. A Brownsville, Texas native, Gustavo is currently Associate Arts Professor of Collaborative Arts at NYU’s Tisch School and has been on faculty at the University of Maine at Farmington, University of California (San Diego), Del Mar College/Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Korea National University of the Arts, and The University of Akron, and has given lectures and master classes at universities and symposia across the United States and abroad.

LEAH BOWDEN performs solo and in a wide variety of bands and projects from popular to experimental music. She has toured and recorded with Baby Bushka, Man Forever (Kid Millions), Aa (BIG A little a), red fish blue fish, William Winant, Francisco Eme, The Red Notes, Tiger Milk Imports, Secret Drum Band, and more. She founded El Otro Lado, an international percussion ensemble (USA-Mexico), to celebrate all forms of diversity and draw attention to issues of social, economic, and environmental justice. She was founding organizer of The Voices of Our City Choir, a project that brought together professional musicians and people experiencing homelessness. Bowden holds a D.M.A. from the University of California, San Diego and wrote a dissertation—“Max Roach and M’Boom: Diasporic Soundings in American Percussion Music” and is Director of the Warren Smith archives.

ANDREW DRURY is a composer/percussionist and organizer who has performed in 30 countries and on over 80 recordings with artists such as Christine Abdelnour, Kris Davis, Robert Dick, Peter Evans, Jason Kao Hwang, Eyvind Kang, Briggan Krauss, Frank Lacy, Ingrid Laubrock, Carol Liebowitz, Wade Mathews, Myra Melford, JD Parran, Tomeka Reid, Roswell Rudd, Brandon Seabrook, John Tchicai, Wadada Leo Smith. Drury founded Continuum Culture & Arts, a non-profit organization that produces live and recorded work including the Soup & Sound series, promotes international cultural exchange, and leads cultural activities with schools and social service organizations focused on low-income and homeless people. Originally from the Seattle area he studied with Ed Blackwell, Dave Coleman, Alan Dawson, and Steve McCraven.

LESLEY MOK is a drummer, composer, and improviser whose work focuses on transposing, augmenting, and overacting humanness to explore ideas about normalcy, alienness, and privilege. Leading a nine-piece improvising chamber ensemble, The Living Collection, and collaborating with artists such as Jen Shyu, Cory Smythe, and Tomeka Reid, Lesley has honed a unique voice as a drummer and percussionist by employing a dynamic range of timbres and orchestrations. Inspired by the Cuban rumba tradition, she often plays in sparse counterpoint to others in an ensemble, highlighting choice moments in the music. She is the winner of the 2021 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Composer Award, the 2021 Van Lier Fellowship at the Asian American Arts Alliance, and was a participant in JACK Studio 2021, the inaugural cohort of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (M³), and is an alumnus of the Banff Program for Jazz & Creative Music and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.

MICHAEL WIMBERLY’s early beginnings in soul, funk, rock, jazz, and classical music began in Cleveland, Ohio during the civil rights era where he grew up surrounded by the toxic fumes of steel mills buoyed by a sea of blue-collar workers. Since then, Wimberly has performed with George Clinton and the Parliament Funkedelic, Charles Gayle, Steve Coleman, Paul Winter Consort, Vernon Reid, Henry Rollins, Blondie, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, D'Angelo, and Angie Stone. A featured artist with Berlin’s Rundfunk Symphony, Vienna’s Tonkuntsler Symphony, Leipzig Symphony, and others. As a composer and sound designer, Wimberly’s compositions have been performed by dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet II, Alvin Ailey, Ailey II, Philadanco, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Millers Dance Players, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Alpha Omega, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. Wimberly joined the faculty of Bennington College in 2012.