Aaron Pond is a hornist and curator based in Philadelphia. Emerging from a childhood steeped in the rigorous forms of Judaic and classical music, Pond now plays with and transcends musical genres. Since 2014, he has dedicated himself to improvisation and oral composition, developing a voice defined by the kaleidoscopic use of wind instruments, multiphonic singing, and rich tones.

Running through all Pond's projects is the belief that ritual is a catalyst for communal connection, a model for a better world to come. You can find him ruling the roost with BORBS! and investigating the web of being with Inverse and Obverse. His ongoing partnership with Thomas Patteson- Argyle Torah- is a friendship spanning the vast terrains of ethnomusicology, organology, and philosophical inquiry. Aaron serves as President of People’s Music Supply, a presenting, educational, and social non-profit organization dedicated to Creative Music. 

Qiujiang Levi Lu is a NYC-based performance artist, experimental musician, composer, and educator. Their work transforms the body into a sonic object through interactions with movements and audio technology, exploring identity, sound, and space. Lu designs customized feedback systems with cyborg-like body augmentations inspired by Objectophilia/animism. These include special microphones, speakers placed within bodily orifices, and an augmented amplified laptop. Their resulting performances consist of choreographed, ritualistic improvisations building upon ancient Chinese drumming traditions to manifest body dysmorphia, sexuality, spirituality, and mortality.

 
As the second-prize winner of the International Electronic Music Competition 2023, their works have been featured internationally, including MATA Festival, High Zero Festival, Inkonst, E-Flux, IRCAM Forum, and Center for Performance Research. Lu has also been an artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room, Harvestworks TIP, Reforesters Laboratory, and Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm. Lu is currently a lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Timo Vollbrecht is a NYC-based saxophonist-composer, scholar, and Brown University Jazz Director. In his music, he fuses jazz with post-rock, new music, ambiance, and instrumental songwriting while blending acoustic delicateness with electronics-infused worlds of orchestral width. The New York City Jazz Record calls him a “luminously-fine” bandleader, whose music is “blessed with rhythmic fluidity and intricate twists.” Born and raised in Germany, he has been an active agent in the artistic communities of New York and Berlin.

With his band Fly Magic, he has toured more than 30 countries, recorded numerous albums, and appeared on landmark stages in Europe and the US. He also runs the Tether Trio, together with vocalist Theo Bleckmann and pianist Harmen Fraanje, and has collaborated with Ben Monder, Branford Marsalis, Miho Hazama, Kenny Werner, Jerome Harris, and others. His upcoming live album, Bremen New York (2025), features Ralph Alessi, Chris Tordini, Elias Stemeseder, and Thomas Strønen.

Next up, Timo is embarking on a project that derives inspiration from the seemingly antithetical music of composer Hanns Eisler and the electronic trailblazer band Kraftwerk, building electro-acoustic worlds through live-processing, sampling, and post-production. He is also working on a book about ECM-producer Manfred Eicher’s recording process for Oxford University Press.

SCOTT LI is a NYC-based classically trained violinist, composer, performer, improviser, filmmaker, recording engineer, and sound artist blending the Romantic chamber music tradition with emotive experimental electronic music. Hailed by The Crossfader as “one of the pioneers of the next generation’s classical music”, Li’s compositions fuse modular synthesis, live processing, fixed media, film, photography, dance, and prose with elements of classical chamber music to “create a simultaneous understanding of The Beautiful and The Sublime, while exhibiting unparalleled emotional induction.” (The Crossfader, 2019) Half of the newly formed “Warp Duo” with electroacoustic improviser Levi Lu, Li is an explorer of haunting and ethereal sounds of wildly different styles, and a collaborator of a diverse group of musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, writers, and dancers. Collaborations have included premieres of large scale, multi-movement works at New World Symphony’s BLUE Project series in 2022, The University of Michigan’s Dance Department alongside Vim Vigor Dance, as well as upcoming commissions from the Pathos Percussion Trio. Li has performed at numerous established venues across the country, including the New World Symphony Center in Miami, REDCAT, the DiMenna Center, the Jazz Gallery in NYC, Rhizome DC, and Ottobar in Baltimore.