Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.

As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.” Her third solo studio album, You’re The One, released August 18 on Nonesuch Records.

Hawaiian born bassist and composer Shawn Conley grew up loving all types of music. This love of diversity of sound developed into a career that straddles many genres. He has been playing with the Silkroad Ensemble for six years and is a member of the Brooklyn-based chamber orchestra The Knights.

Recent projects include Silkroad’s Grammy Award-winning album Sing Me Home, an upcoming release of the Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos with Gil Shaham and The Knights, the world premiere tour of Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time (commissioned by Silkroad), as well as an international tour of the new performance-art piece The Head and the Load created by South African visual artist William Kentridge. Shawn can also be heard on The Knights album Azul, featuring Silkroad founder Yo-Yo Ma.

As a studio musician, he has performed on multiple soundtracks including True Grit, Moonrise Kingdom, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, and the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Shawn studied at Rice University with Paul Ellison and in Paris, France with Francois Rabbath. Shawn currently splits his time between Brooklyn, NY and Houston, TX with his wife Megan, and their son Osian.

Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino) is an Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller known for her distinct, soulful vocals and for breathing life into several musical genres. Her work as a musician has brought her around the world to do work at festivals, benefits, in classrooms, online, and in the studio. As a Native activist and cultural leader, she has done work to combat the erasure of native culture, restore traditions, build community, fight corporate takeover of native land, and give a voice to those facing social injustice.

As the founding member of the internationally renowned Native Women’s a cappella trio Ulali, Pura Fé helped to create a movement throughout Indian Country, which not only empowered Native Women’s hand drum and harmony, but also built a bridge for Native music into the mainstream music scene.  Ulali’s unique fusion of ancestral music, cultural roots, and message has left its mark. Ulali has recorded music for soundtracks, television commercials, has had platinum sales in Italy, and appeared at several events for the benefit of Indigenous Peoples and the environment.

Pura Fé’s solo career has produced six studio albums with her Native Blues and lap-steel slide guitar work. While touring Europe with Music Maker Blues Review under Dixie Frog and Nueva Onda French labels, she won Grand Prix du Disque from L’Académie Charls Cros (French Grammy) for Best World Album in 2006 for Tuscarora Nation Blues, and a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist for Follow Your Heart’s Desire in the same year.

Pura Fé and Ulali appeared in and consulted for the Rezolution Pictures Documentary RUMBLE: The Indians That Rocked The World, which won first place at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Pura Fé commented on her experience with the documentary, “This gave me a chance to reenact a piece of the historical birth of blues music that no one considers or hears about.”

Incumbent United States Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo once said, “We are systematically being written out of everything.” To have a platform to help bring awareness to the mainstream was crucial to Pura Fé and Ulali.

Born and raised in New York City, Pura Fé was classically trained in dance and vocals. As a child, show business paid for her education by way of Broadway plays, truck and bus tours, television commercials, and jingles. She was raised by her mother, Nanice Lund, who also sang professionally, performing for Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert Series. Pura Fé later went on to sing with the Mercer Ellington Orchestra.

Though she was a city kid, the influence of her grandparents’ mixed-race ancestry with at least eight generations of women singers, continues to be the doorway to her musical creativity. Pura Fé is the ninth generation of singers in her family, whom hail from the North Carolina Indigenous Tuscarora Deer Clan, who have black and Scotch-Irish ancestry as well. She later moved to North Carolina to connect with family from her maternal line and maintains ties with family and many Indigenous communities in the area. Her black ancestry stems from African banjo pickers from The Lee and Monk Plantations (from which world-renowned Jazz pianist Thelonius Monk descended) who married Tuscarora women during the Civil War.

Music is woven into the DNA on both sides of Pura Fé’s family. Although she did not grow up with him, her father, Juan Antonio Crescioni, was from Puerto Rico and grew up singing alongside his mother who played a cuatro, strumming out Jibaro music. Ancestry on Pura Fé’s paternal side is Taíno Indian of Puerto Rico, Corsican, and Spanish-Berber of the Canary Islands.

In her early teens, Pura Fé and her family became a part of the Urban Indian Scene through the American Indian Community House (AICH) based in NYC. AICH housed a collection of talented creators from Indigenous Nations all over North America. This is where she met what would later be the members of Ulali. With AICH, the group was able to take part in the beginnings of the United Nations Indigenous Permanent Forum. This brought the group around Indian Country, sharing their music and participating in Indigenous rights activism. Through the years, the group created a family network from all over Indian Country.

Today, Pura Fé lives in Canada and is writing a film for Rezolution Pictures. She is also working with First Nations dance and theater troops while recording a new album.

Multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii has won international acclaim for her interpretation of contemporary music and commissioned and performed numerous premiere works from luminary living composers.

Ms. Fujii has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras including San Francisco Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Nationale de Lyon and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She also performs as a member of San Francisco Contemporary Players, the New York based Line C3 Percussion Group, and Utari Percussion Duo – a project with her sister Rika Fujii. Her recordings can be found on the SONY, Kosei, ALM Records and Deutsche Grammophon labels.

In addition to her career as a performing artist, Ms. Fujii recently joined the percussion faculty of San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has been a frequent guest instructor at Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar and several international percussion festivals.

A Guggenheim Fellow, Sandeep Das is one of the leading Tabla virtuosos in the world today. Since his debut concert at the age of 17 with legendary Sitar player Ravi Shankar, Das has built a prolific international reputation spanning over three decades. He has collaborated with top musicians, ensembles, and orchestras from all over the world, and his original compositions have been performed in 50+ countries.

Das is the founder of Harmony and Universality through Music (HUM), a nonprofit organization in India that has promoted global understanding through music performance and provided learning opportunities and scholarships for visually-impaired children with artistic potential since 2009.

His most recent project, Transcending Borders One Note at a Time, launched in 2020 to widespread international acclaim, and seeks to harness the power of music to create positive social change.

Described as “radiant” and “expressive” (The New York Times) and “nothing less than gorgeous” (Memphis Commercial Appeal), cellist and composer Karen Ouzounian approaches music-making with a deeply communicative and passionate spirit. Winner of the S&R Foundation’s Washington Award, she appears regularly with the Silkroad Ensemble and is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Aizuri Quartet.

Recent projects include the creation of an experimental theater work with director Joanna Settle; the world premiere of Lembit Beecher’s cello concerto Tell Me Again with the Orlando Philharmonic; the world premiere of Anna Clyne’s Shorthand for solo cello and string quintet with The Knights; and the release of Kayhan Kalhor’s Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur for solo cello, kamancheh and tabla. Her evening-length video work In Motion, an exploration of heritage, family history and migration through interviews, her own compositions, and collaborations with visual artists, was presented by BroadBand in 2021.

Critically acclaimed as one of America’s most talented and versatile performers today, Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift has engaged audiences all over the world with the signature weaving of song, melody and improvisation that they call MazzMuse. As a singer, composer and Juilliard-trained violinist who plays electronic and acoustic instruments, Mazz has performed and recorded with a diverse accumulation of artists including The Silkroad Ensemble, William Parker, Butch Morris, Jason Lindner, James “Blood” Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Valerie June, Whitney Houston, DJ Logic, Kanye West, D’Angelo.

Mx. Swift is a 2021 United States Artist and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, currently working on a series of compositions that involve conducted improvisation, and that are centered around protest, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward.

Since moving to Ireland in 2004 from the Democratic Republic Of Congo Niwel settled with his wife and three children and quickly became a prominent face on the Irish music scene.

He has been hailed as ”an exceptional guitar player” by Europe’s leading online Jazz magazine All About Jazz and his music “enchanted” The Irish Times.

He has collaborated with many celebrated Irish musicians such as Sinéad O’Connor, Liam O’Maonlai, Donal Lunny, Glen Hansard, as well as international stars such as Ma Xiaohui (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack), Senegalese legend Baaba Maal, Richard Bona and Nigel Kennedy amongst others.

With influences from far and wide, his elegant and fluent guitar playing draws from his past excursions with African rhythms, rumba, jazz, classical and much more besides.

After working with the Abbey Theatre and performing with a number of Opera productions Niwel is now focusing on his own music, working with his long time collaborator Eamonn Cagney on percussion.

His debut appearance with the Irish Memory Orchestra at London’s Cadogan Hall in 2018 was the latest in a line of collaborations Niwel has had with Dave Flynn including the supergroup DFF and a performance with the Crash Ensemble in Cork Opera House.

Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe’s melodic, authentic and engaging music focuses on points of connection: the joints between Western jazz and Japanese theater and folk traditions and political action, the ancient and the all-too-contemporary.

Born into a musical family, Watanabe began his training at a young age, eventually graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, then devoting a decade overseas performing with and ultimately leading the world-renowned Taiko drum performance group Kodo.

His ten years in Japan profoundly influenced Watanabe’s practice. His signature skill of infusing Japanese culture to disparate styles has made him a much-in-demand collaborator, having worked with Wes Anderson, Yo-Yo Ma, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson, Jason, and Alicia Hall Moran, Bando Tamasaburo, Eva Yerbabuena, and Zakir Hussain, among many others. Whether writing for solo performances, interdisciplinary ensembles, film, or symphony orchestras, he regularly explores social justice, history, and heritage issues.

Michi Wiancko is a violinist and composer whose creative work encompasses a wide spectrum of new composition, collaboration, and interpretation. Her current and upcoming commissions include a new opera called Arkana Aquarium produced by Experiments in Opera, new works for Boston Chamber Music Society, NOW Ensemble, Jupiter String Quartet, Cavani String Quartet, Anne Akiko Meyers, Jason Vieaux, Andrew Yee, Alexi Kenney, and Mark Fewer.

Highlights from past commissioning projects include works for the The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Bern with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Anna Prohaska, Liquid Music, Aizuri Quartet, Enso Quartet, Sybarite5, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble and Ecstatic Music Festival. She also composes music for short and feature-length films, commercials, and for her own band, Kono Michi.

After receiving the 2018 Opera America Commissioning Grant for Female Composers, Michi Wiancko’s first opera, Murasaki’s Moon, was premiered to critical acclaim (and to more than 15,000 livestream views) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2019. This work was created in collaboration with librettist Deborah Brevoort and director Eric Einhorn, and co-commissioned by Met Live Arts, OnSite Opera, and American Lyric Theater.

A passionate interpreter of contemporary music, Michi has been fortunate enough to work closely with a wide array of her favorite living composers including Gabriela Lena Frank, Missy Mazzoli, Vijay Iyer, Judd Greenstein, David T. Little, PaviElle French, Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, William Brittelle, Paula Matthusen, Mark Dancigers, Jessie Montgomery, and Christopher Adler. She has also arranged for and performed with countless non-classical artists, most notably Emily Wells, Jen Wasner and Wye Oak, PaviElle French, and El Vy with Matt Berninger from The National. Michi has toured with International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, A Far Cry, Alarm Will Sound, Mark Morris Dance Group, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Musicians from Marlboro, and many others.

Michi gave her violin solo debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and performed her recital debut in Weill Hall. In September of 2020, she released an album of newly-commissioned works for electro-acoustic solo violin on New Amsterdam Records. Michi recorded the complete solo violin works of Émile Sauret for Naxos Records, and appears on two albums released by Nonesuch Records: a string quartet composed by Laurie Anderson, and Pulse by Steve Reich with the International Contemporary Ensemble (which they performed in Carnegie Hall as part of Steve Reich’s 80th birthday celebration in 2016). Her mentors include Donald Weilerstein and the late violinist and composer Robert Mann, with whom she studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Juilliard, respectively.

In addition to her composition and performing career, Michi is director and curator of Antenna Cloud Farm, a music festival, arts retreat, and community organization based in western Massachusetts that has been on the Boston Globe’s Top 10 Must-See summer list two years in a row. She also teaches a course on 21st century musicianship and creativity at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument—which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions.

Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists. She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble and a Master Musician for the Aga Khan Music Foundation. She has appeared in more than 40 recordings throughout her career, including the Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning recording Sing Me Home, featuring her composition “Green (Vincent’s Tune).” She is also a featured artist in the 2015 documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa. She moved to the U.S. in 1990 and was awarded the Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1998. She was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive the United States Artist Fellowship (2008) and the first artist from China to perform at the White House. In 2013, she was named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year and in 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music. She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi’an Conservatories.

Co-founder and founding President of the American Academy of World Music, performer, educator, and musical instrument reformer, active on the international stage. He is good at playing suona and a variety of Chinese and Western wind instruments. He is recognized by the industry as one of the best suona performers in the world, and he is committed to integrating Chinese music with world music.

Graduated from the Traditional Music Department of the Central Conservatory of Music in 1990, and stayed on to teach at the school; in 2000, he became the principal of suona of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO); in 2012 he went to the United States to study, and also gave lectures and held lectures at Harvard University, Philadelphia University of the Arts and Berklee College of Music concert. He won the Pro Music is International Award in New York in 1998 and the Hong Kong Artist of the Year Award in 2013. In 2015, he obtained the Artist Diploma of Berklee College of Music, and He has led the Berklee College of Music Band to visit China and Singapore many times..

He has recorded more than a dozen of solo albums, many of which were released globally. The Suona active core developed by him won the second prize of Science and Technology Progress Award of the Ministry of Culture in 1993; he also developed Polyphonic Hulusi and and Guzheng transposition double-slot bridge, which has attracted much attention in the industry. In 2021, Co-founded the American Academy of World Music and the Two Tune World Music Ensemble in Henderson House.