Simultaneously spiritual and rebellious, singer and trumpet player Sonny Singh’s music is a reminder that hope, love, and devotion are crucial to our struggles and collective survival. In 2022, he released his debut solo album called Chardi Kala, which refers to the Sikh concept of revolutionary eternal optimism. Chardi Kala is a return to Sonny’s Punjabi & Sikh roots, but with the lens he’s developed over the course of his life as a touring musician, educator, and activist. JazzTimes calls it “vibrant, ebullient, and energized… Singh, punctuated poignantly by echoing guitar, humming bass and sighing harmonium, cries out a prayer for our ailing world.”

Composer & Kanunist, Firas Zreik has performed and recorded across the world as a leader and highly sought collaborator since 2013. A sonic revolutionary, the Palestine-born New Yorker has transformed global perception of the Kanun. His treatment of the instrument preserves its identity as a vital part of the Maqam tradition and stretches its potential as a cultural chameleon enhancing a range of fresh, evolving sounds. He views the Maqam’s improvisation-driven legacy as a vessel for unbound creative expression across musical styles.

Zreik’s music is honest and authentic. His nuanced approach translates the Kanun’s resonant depth of emotion, with a mastery of microtonal soundscaping. Comfortable in both heavily orchestrated and spontaneous settings, he creates waves of layered expression and lyricism among his fellow artists. Over the years, he has collaborated with a cross section of leaders, including Roger Waters, Simon Shaheen, Amir ElSaffar, Fabrizio Cassol, Marwan Khoury, Abeer Nehmeh, Walid Toufic, Elias Karam, Shreya Goshal, Shankar Mahadevan, Aynur Dogan, G.E. Smith, David Broza and his internationally renowned mother and frequent artistic partner Amal Murkus, for whom he serves as musical director.

In live performance, Zreik conjures a complexity of emotion that shape-shifts throughout his sets. He enters fragile places and sits inside them. This commitment to stark exploration has sent him around the world, performing at storied venues, intimate clubs and international festivals.

John Ellis is one of New York’s premiere tenor saxophone voices. With more than 150 album credits as a sideman, John has recorded with a wide variety of artists such as Charlie Hunter, Robert Glasper, Darcy James Argue, Helen Sung, Kendrick Scott Oracle, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Sting.  John was the 2nd place winner of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition in 2002, he was the recipient of three composition grants through The Jazz Gallery for the creation of new work (“Dreamscapes”, “The Ice Siren”, and “MOBRO”) and he was selected as the 2014 Make Jazz Fellow by the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica.  John has released thirteen albums as a leader, three of those featuring his New Orleans-centered band Double-Wide, which has toured extensively and was featured on the Main Stage of the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival. He co-produced the music for the children’s book series “Baby Loves Jazz” with Aaron Goldberg, and he wrote the theme music for the NPR podcast, “Rough Translation.” “Say It Quiet”, his most recent album, is a collaboration with Glenn Patscha and Adam Levy.  It was released on the Sunnyside record label in August of 2021.

A rising star of the explosive and multidimensional Colombian music scene, Diana Burco is a singer – songwriter and accordion player. Burco has played and investigated Colombia’s traditional music since she was a child. She has traveled throughout Colombia searching out the country’s varied forms and expressions and has studied and collaborates with the masters that interpret them.  This deep cultural fluency and her own wide-ranging contemporary explorations mark Burco as a 21st century troubadour charting an original path rooted in her country’s rich heritage.  Diana Burco has participated in programs and platforms around the world including One Beat Colombia, Ethno World and MAPAS (Artes Performativas del Atlantico Sur). Her debut U.S. tour in March 2022 featured shows in Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM, Burlington VT, Great Barrington MA, Washington DC, West Palm Beach FL, New York City, and Savannah GA. In 2023 she will release his third album and will perform at SXSW in Austin-Texas.

Mafer Bandola is a Venezuelan bandola llanera player, community organizer, self-taught composer, and educator. The traditions of the bandola llanera (a traditional stringed instrument from the plains of Venezuela) are historically male-dominated and Mafer brings her instrument on a new artistic path with the stories and voices of women through composition, performance, and improvisation. A co-founder and member of all-women group, LADAMA, Mafer has performed at institutions in the US and abroad, such as MassMoca, WOMAD, Womex, TED, National Sawdust, NPR TinyDesk, among others. As a teaching artist, she works for The Lullaby Project, a Carnegie Hall initiative, pairing parents and caregivers with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting maternal health, aiding childhood development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child. Mafer is the creator and host of Pipiris Nights, the only gathering to play and dance Venezuelan Joropos in New York.