Trumpeter and composer Amir ElSaffar—born in Chicago in 1977 to an Iraqi father and an American mother—is a classically trained and experimental artist known for his ambitious blend of post-bop jazz, traditional Iraqi maqam, and other Arab musical traditions. ElSaffar first came to prominence working with Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa, before showcasing his crossover sound in Two Rivers in 2007 and Inana in 2011. In addition to collaborating with saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh, he leads the seventeen-piece ensemble Rivers of Sound, with which he released Not Two in 2017 and The Other Shore in 2021.

Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch is a composer and sound artist. His interests range from pure electronics to compositions for theater and dance, from soundtracks for images to interactive installations. In his compositions, he is always interested in the idea of establishing new connections between otherwise distant elements. In this sense, much of his work is devoted to 3D sound, multichannel and holophonic composition. He has received commissions from various institutions, including Ircam-Center Pompidou, Group of Musical Research (GRM), Venice Biennale, and many others. He founded the Ornithology Productions label in 2022. He was an associate artist at Ircam - Centre Pompidou from 2019 to 2023 and of Villa Albertine in 2025. He is professor of electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de Montbeliard.