PECK ALLMOND: is a multi-instrumentalist and composer. His main instuments are trumpet, flute, and tenor sax, and he doubles fluently on an incredibly long list of other brass and woodwinds as well as the kalimba. He has performed and/or recorded with Me'Shell NdegeOcello, Oliver Lake, Peter Apfelbaum, Don Cherry, Julius Hemphill, John Hicks, Rickie Lee Jones, Rufus Wainwright, Ray Lamontagne, Sean Lennon, Will Lee, Randy Newman, Lenny Kravitz, and James Brown; and leads his own units, the Peck Allmond Group and Kalimba Kollective.

JARED GOLD: is only 28 but already he has established himself within the upper echelon of the Jazz Organ world for his mastery of the Hammond B-3 organ, a notoriously idiosyncratic instrument. Having started on the piano, he has a "dry" style that clicks with jazz musicians who have a sense of precision but who also know how to stretch and groove. A presence on the New York scene, he often plays with jazz guitarists Avi Rothbard and Dave Stryker.

GENE LAKE: embodies the contradictions of modern music. He has been playing for more than 10 years with a stunningly diverse range of artists: from r&b group Surface in the 1980s to the "new wave" of r&b acts such as Me'shell NdegeOcello, Maxwell, and D'Angelo in the 1990s; from jazz innovators Steve Coleman,Oliver Lake and Henry Threadgill, to fusion legends Joe Zawinul and Marcus Miller; from jazz/rap group Opus Akoben to acts that defy categorization, such as the wildly original rock/funk/jazz fusion group Screaming Headless Torsos.

OLIVER LAKE: Composer, musician, poet, painter and performance artist, Lake is a featured artist on more than 50 recordings. He is an explosively unpredictable soloist, known for his piercing, bluesy saxophone trademark. Lake has created chamber pieces for the Arditti and Flux String Quartets, arranged music for Bjork, Lou Reed and A Tribe Called Quest, collaborated with poets Amiri Baraka and Ntozake Shange, choreographers Ron Brown and Marlies Yearby and actress/author Anna Devere Smith. He is co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet and Trio 3 and leads his Steel Quartet and Big Band.

D. J. JAHI SUNDANCE: Always at the cutting edge Jahi can play everything from hip-hop, house, jazz, 80’s, rock, reggae to punk,. However, he is most known for creating unique and positive soundscapes. Which have landed him dj spots at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. He is currently working on an album with a group he co-founded called, BlackGold, as well as djing for G.O.O.D. Music/Sony recording artists Sa-Ra. He is also a full time professor at Scratch, the first ever dj school located in NYC.

FLUX QUARTET: The spirit to explore and expand stylistic boundaries is a trademark of the FLUX Quartet. Partly as an homage to the 60’s Fluxus art movement, violinist Tom Chiu founded the FLUX Quartet in the 90’s with a quest similar to that of some of the original Fluxus artists: a search for a living art for all people with an embracing "anything-goes" spirit. To that end, FLUX has always been committed to projects of unique vision—like Jazz-Poetry 2008-- that defy aesthetic categorization. The quartet avidly seeks out collaborative relationships with genre-transcending artists such as Ornette Coleman, Joan La Barbara, Oliver Lake, balloon artist Judy Dunaway (new CD on Innova Recordings), and musical-visual artist collective, the Slave Pianos. One of the most fearless and important new-music ensembles around,” (Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle) “who has a brought a new renaissance to quartet music,” (Kyle Gann, The Village Voice). Highlights of recent seasons include the debut appearances at The Kennedy Center and Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, residencies at Wesleyan College and Princeton University, and the Interpretations Series, a leading series, based in New York City, for innovative music of living performers and composers.

TOM CHIU: A noted champion of new music, experimental violinist Tom Chiu has performed over 100 premieres worldwide and has worked closely with many distinguished composers including Virko Baley, Dean Drummond, Oliver Lake and Chen Yi, among others. He avidly pursues collaborations with unconventional artists whose work he admires, including balloon virtuoso Judy Dunaway, avant choreographer Eun-Me Ahn, puppeteer Basil Twist, and guitarist-electronicist David First. He has also worked closely with Ornette Coleman, with whom he appeared at the 2000 Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival. Tom's discography includes recordings for the Asphodel, Cambria, Koch, Mode, Sombient, and Tzadik labels. His original works as composer/improvisor have been performed in numerous countries, including Mongolia and Uzbekistan. Having also composed for motion pictures, his first soundtrack for the short film Boris (written and directed by Francesca Galesi) won the top prize at the NY Expo Festival of Shorts. Holding degrees in music and chemistry from Juilliard and Yale, Tom occasionally reminisces about his childhood appearance with Tom Hanks in The Man With One Red Shoe.

ROSE BELLINI: An outstanding cellist who performs a wide variety of classical music - including traditional, amplified, improvisational, and experimental. She has a busy solo career and also regularly performs with contemporary music ensembles, modern dance companies, and chamber and orchestral groups such as REDSHIFT, Ensemble Pamplemousse, TACTUS, and Astoria Symphony, and in venues from Monkeytown to Symphony Space to Carnegie Hall.  Rose frequently commissions and premieres new works for cello and amplified cello, and has collaborated with numerous established and emerging composers including Bang on a Can, Derek Bermel, James Holt, Garrett Byrnes, Derek Johnson, Todd Reynolds, Don Byron, Dan Bradshaw, and Eric Guinivan.  Rose plays a cello made by Thomas Kennedy of London, c. 1810.

PAULINE KIM: Praised for her expressive tone and virtuosity, she has performed as a soloist with the Korean Philharmonic and the Barbad Chamber Orchestra, and at the Aspen Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival on the Rising Stars Series, the Banff Centre in Canada, and her performances have been featured on PBS. Ms. Kim was one of the last students of Jascha Heifetz, and studied at the Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay and Cho Liang Lin.

MAX MANDEL: From his student days to his current professional career Canadian violist Max Mandel has always been involved in chamber music groups of great variety. Max was a member of the Metro Quartet for six years, an experience which forged his dedication to chamber music through collaboration with his colleagues and teachers such as Lorand Fenyves and Menahem Pressler at many music festivals, but especially the Banff Center for the Arts. Private studies at the University of Toronto and the Juilliard School were with Steven Dann and Samuel Rhodes. Comfortable in many styles and genres, Max's current group affiliations beside FLUX include the Caramoor Virtuosi, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, the Metropolitan Museum Artists, Toronto Camerata and Aradia Baroque Ensemble. This season's highlights include a guest appearance at the Smithsonian Institution using instruments from their famous collection of Stradivari. Max plays on a 1973 Giovanni Battista Morassi generously loaned to him by Lesley Robertson of the St. Lawrence Quartet.

LYNN EMANUEL: is a long-time Pittsburgh resident and the author of three books of poetry: Then, Suddenly was awarded the Eric Matthieu King Award from The Academy of American Poets; The Dig (1992), and Hotel Fiesta (1984). Her work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry numerous times and is included in The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Emanuel is currently a Professor of English and teaches in the Creative Writing program at the University of Pittsburgh.

TERRANCE HAYES: Terrance Hayes was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1971. He is the author of Wind in a Box, Hip Logic , which won National Poetry Series, and Muscular Music, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He has been a recipient of many honors and awards, including a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Best American Poetry selection, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh.

GERALD STERN: was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925. His honors include the Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Award, the Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, the Ruth Lilly Prize, four National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2005, Stern was selected to receive the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry. Stern was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2006

ROMÁN ANTOPOLSKY: was born in Buenos Aires in 1976. He is the author of two books of poetry, Ádelon and Cythna en red, and translations of poetry and non-fiction into Spanish from Russian, German, and English. His poetry in English and Spanish has recently appeared in Conjunctions, Zoland, Mandorla, Mar con Soroche, Tsé-Tsé, and Cipher, among others. He has lived in Pittsburgh since 2007.

CVETKA LIPUŠ: was born in Austria and studied Slavic languages and comparative literature at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria). Having grown up as member of the Slovenian minority in Austria, she writes poetry in Slovenian as well as non-fiction in German. She received a MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently employed as a librarian. She is the author of five poetry collections and received several fellowships and literary awards. She has resided in Pittsburgh since 1995.

PATRICIA JABBEH WESLEY: immigrated to the United States during the Liberian civil war. She is the author of three books of poetry: The River is Rising, Becoming Ebony, and Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa. Her second book, Becoming Ebony is a Crab Orchard Award winner. She teaches Creative Writing and English at Penn State Altoona and lives in Altoona.

MARYAM ALA AMJADI: is a leading young Iranian poet. She has worked as a Persian-to-English news interpreter at the Iranian Students News Agency in Tehran. Her collection of poetry, Me, I, and Myself was published in English and Persian in 2003, and more poems can be found in the Tehran Times Daily and the web magazine, Thanal. She wrote the poems for "What is Home?" in English. She attends courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State.

NIKOLA MADZIROV: is one of Macedonia’s most distinguished poets, as well as an essayist and translator. He has published five collections, including Relocated Stone, which won both the European Hubert Burda Poetry Award and the Miladinov Brothers Award in 2007. Madzirov’s work has been translated into dozens of languages, including English.. He attends courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State.

ROGELIO SAUNDERS: began his career in Cuba as part of an informal group of artists called “Spirogira.” A poet, short story writer, novelist and essayist, his most recent publications include the poetry collection Fábula de ínsulas no escritas and La cinta sin fin, a volume of short stories. Saunders currently resides in Spain. He participates courtesy of the Wiliam B. Quarton Foundation.

HORACIO CASTELLANOS MOYA, NOVELIST & WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE CITY OF ASYLUM/PITTSBURGH: was born in 1957 in Honduras, but grew up in El Salvador. He has lived in Guatemala, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico (where he spent twelve years as a journalist, editor, and political analyst), Spain, and Germany. In 1988 he won the National Novel Prize from Central American University for his first novel. His work has been translated into 5 languages. He has published eight novels. The English translation of his novel Senselessness was published in June by New Directions. He has resided in Pittsburgh since 2006 as City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s exiled writer-in-residence.

DAVID CONRAD, READER: was born in Pittsburgh. As an actor, he first came to the attention of television audiences with.recurring roles on the hit shows Relativity; Roswell; and Boston Public. He has gained even more recognition for his portrayal of the paramedic husband, Jim Clancy, on the popular supernatural series “The Ghost Whisperer’ opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt. He also has an active film and stage career, as well as being a champion of poetry in Pittsburgh. He will be reading poetry of non-living authors.

BARBARA RUSSELL, EMCEE: is a long-time North Side resident, well-known to Pittsburgh audiences as the comedy partner of the late Don Brockett. She has been involved as an actor in radio, television, industrials, and film for more years than she would like to count, and has worked at numerous Pittsburgh-area theaters. A former schoolteacher, she was one of the first teachers of reading on WQED-TV and has worked as a teacher-in-residence for Gateway to the Arts. She is currently performing as Miss Minni Drama for Pittsburgh International Childrens’ Theater, teaching preschoolers theater manners.

DAVE BJORNSON, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: is Technical Director of the New Hazlett Theater and Technical Director/Chief Engineer for several local companies. He has a long experience in designing and creating complex multimedia for music, theatre and film communities and his production credits include acts as varied as Aretha Franklin, David Copperfield, Phantom of the Opera, and the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as many corporate and political clients. He has designed and implemented the technical infrastructure for each Jazz Poetry Concert, and supervised all technical crews.

KRISTIN CARRIGAN, STAGE MANAGER: is an English teacher at Shaler Area. Recent technical work on shows includes Savage in Limbo (Caravan Theatre of Pittsburgh), Chanticleer (Pandora’s Box Theatre), The Giver (Prime Stage), I Love Gas (Columbia Natural Gas and Empty Jug), and The Sunshine Boys (Apple Hill).

JIM MUELLER, VIDEO MIX & ALLEY EFFECTS: has designed video for performances by Attack Theater, Quantum Theatre and Indiana University of Pennsylvania School of Theater and Dance. Prior to working in the performing arts world, he co-founded the monthly experimental movie screening series Jefferson Presents in 2000 and served as co-programmer for the series through 2004.

TERESA FOLEY, VIDEOS: Foley is an award-winning video artist and digital media arts educator, who received her BA in English Literature from Duquesne University. She studied filmmaking and video production and Balinese painting and woodcarving as an independent student. Her motion pictures have screened internationally, and she has received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pittsburgh Foundation. She lives in Pittsburgh.