Marilyn Crispell - piano
Lotte Anker - saxophones

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin’s Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She’s also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera, X, with the New York City Opera). In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets. Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years.

Lotte Anker (Soprano, alto, tenor saxophones) is known for her intense playing and as one of the strongest improvisers in the freeform/improv field in Denmark. Anker currently works as co-leader of the highly acclaimed 12-piece group, Copenhagen Art Ensemble, and a trio with Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver. Other current working groups and ongoing collaborations include: The Quartet Ictus (with Marc Ducret, Peter Friis-Nielsen, Stefan Pasborg. Also Mokuto Quartet (w/ Herb Robertson, Peter Friis-Nielsen, P.O. Jørgensen and projects with Tim Berne, Benoit Delbecq, Arve Henriksen, Sylvie Courvoisier, Paal Nilssen-Love. Anker has also played with a.o. Peter Brötzman, Andrew Cyrille, Marilyn Mazur. Lotte Anker has received several working grants, commissions and awards: a.o. a 3-year working grant from the State Arts Council in ‘96, DJBFA compositional prize 2002, BG-Foundation Artist in Residence (New York) 2005. As a composer, Anker has written for small groups, big band, chamber orchestras and choir. Both as a musician and composer her main interests are in the worlds of modern/free/improv jazz and contemporary music and the combination of the two.