Eva Šušková is a concert singer and music educator. As an artist, she has long distinguished herself in the field of chamber music spanning all stylistic periods and cross-genre collaborations, but particularly in 20th-century and contemporary music. She has performed at numerous opera houses and at international and domestic music and theater festivals in collaboration with renowned conductors, orchestras, and ensembles. Her recordings feature signature projects as well as diverse cross-genre artistic collaborations. She is the recipient of the Tatra Banka Foundation Award for Art, the Radio Head Awards, and the Frico Kafenda Award. She is affiliated with the Faculty of Education at Comenius University and the non-profit organization Superar Slovakia.

Peter Mazalán is a director, scenographer, and singer. He studied opera singing and set design at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He also graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Slovak University of Technology. He has performed at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Theater Kiel, the National Theatre in Ostrava and Brno, as well as the Slovak National Theatre. He has performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt, the Theater Kiel, the National Theater in Ostrava and Brno, and the Slovak National Theater. He has collaborated with musical ensembles such as the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Münchner Symphoniker, Chorwerk Ruhr, and the Brno Philharmonic. Currently, he primarily creates original intermedia projects that blend classical song literature with contemporary performative and visual techniques. His projects It Is Enough/Ich habe genug (2022) and the performative project Swan Song/Schwanengesang (2024) were nominated for the Divadelné dosky awards. In early 2026, his new project for the SND Drama Company, Etudes on Life with Autism Spectrum Disorder, received positive reviews. In addition to his artistic practice, he teaches at the Department of Scenography at the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMU) and serves as an associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Slovak University of Technology (STU).

David Lang (1957) is an American composer and one of the leading figures in contemporary music. In 1987, he was one of the founding members of the New York collective Bang on a Can, which became one of the most influential platforms for new music at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Lang’s work straddles the boundaries of minimalism, experimental music, and music theater; it is characterized by direct expression, the use of repetition, gradual processes, and a sensitive relationship between music and text. He is the author of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and stage works performed by leading ensembles and festivals around the world. His composition has brought him international recognition. He is a professor of composition at the Yale School of Music, and his music is regularly performed in concert halls as well as in interdisciplinary art projects.

Ellen Fullman (1957) is an American composer and performer. After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute with a degree in sculpture, she began developing The Long String Instrument project in 1980 at her studio in St. Paul, Minnesota. The following year, she moved to Brooklyn. Inspired by composer and instrument designer Harry Partch and Alvin Lucier’s work Music on a Long Thin Wire, she created an extensive work producing drone-like, organ-like overtones that are as unique in the world of sound as her own vision of the instrument.

Phill Niblock (1933–2024) was an American composer and a leading figure in experimental music and sound art. Beginning in the 1960s, he devoted himself to creating long, dense sound compositions based on the slow layering of tones and micro-interval deviations, which generate intense acoustic fields. He served for many years as director of Experimental Intermedia in New York, which became an important platform for presenting experimental art. His works have been performed worldwide and have significantly influenced the development of drone music and contemporary music.

Alois Hába (1893–1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist, and educator, and one of the pioneers of microtonal music in Europe. He was born in Vizovice, Moravia, and studied composition in Prague, Vienna, and Berlin, where he became acquainted with the modern musical movements of the early 20th century. He became famous primarily for developing musical systems utilizing quarter-tones and other microintervals, for which specially modified musical instruments were also created. From 1923, he taught at the Prague Conservatory, where he founded the Department of Quarter-Tone Music and significantly influenced the development of modern music in Central Europe. His oeuvre includes operas, chamber and orchestral works, and remains one of the major milestones of the 20th-century musical avant-garde.

Miroslav Beinhauer (1993) is a pianist and player of the six-tone harmonium who specializes in contemporary music and 20th-century music. He studied at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno with Helena Weiser, at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where his professor was Jan Jiracek von Arnim, and at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent with Daan Vandewalle.

Gordon Monahan (1956) tvorí diela pre klavír, reproduktory, video, kinetickú sochu a počítačové zvukové prostredia presahujú do rôznych žánrov – od avantgardnej koncertnej hudby až po multimediálne inštalácie a sound art. Ako skladateľ a zvukový umelec kladie do vzájomného kontrastu kvantitatívne a kvalitatívne aspekty prírodných akustických javov s prvkami mediálnych technológií, prírodného prostredia, architektúry, populárnej kultúry a živej performancie. Okrem zvukových inštalácií a performancií v oblasti sound artu komponuje aj koncertnú hudbu pre tradičné nástroje. John Cage o ňom raz povedal: „Za klavírom Gordon Monahan vytvára zvuky, aké sme ešte nepočuli.“
Od roku 1978 Monahan vystupoval a vystavoval v mnohých verejných priestoroch, múzeách, galériách a na festivaloch, vrátane Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlín), Bienále v Benátkach, Secession (Viedeň), Ultima Festival (Oslo), Hebbel Theater (Berlín), The Kitchen (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Merkin Hall (New York) a Massey Hall (Toronto).

Steve Reich (1936) patrí k najvplyvnejším skladateľom 20. a 21. storočia. Spolu s Philipom Glassom, La Monte Youngom a Terrym Rileym patrí k zakladateľským postavám hudobného minimalizmu. Nosným prvkom jeho tvorby je postupný fázový posun rytmických vrstiev. Túto techniku objavil experimentovaním s magnetofónovými páskami v 60. rokoch. Vznikli z nej skladby ako It’s Gonna Rain (1965) alebo Piano Phase (1967), ktoré zmenili pohľad na to, čo všetko môže byť hudba.

Inšpiráciu nachádzal aj mimo európskej klasickej tradície — študoval západoafrické bubnové hudby v Ghane, zaujímal sa o gamelan na Bali a o židovskú liturgickú kantiláciu. Výsledkom je hudba, ktorá je zároveň prísne štrukturovaná a živo pulzujúca. Skladby ako Music for 18 Musicians (1976) alebo Different Trains (1988) patria dnes ku kánonickým dielam súčasnej vážnej hudby.

Na Slovensku sa Reichovej hudbe venoval súbor Cluster ensemble. Pod umeleckým vedením Ivana Šillera a Fera Királya uviedol medzi rokmi 2009 a 2019 niekoľko slovenských premiér Reichových diel, medzi inými a skladbu pre šesť klavírov Six Pianos (1976) na legendárnom koncerte v dnes už neexistujúcom obchode s klavírmi MADA na Medenej ulici v Bratislave 15. júna 2009.

Alvin Lucier (1931–2021) bol americký skladateľ, kľúčová postava experimentálnej hudby a sound artu. Vo svojej tvorbe sa sústreďoval na fyzikálne vlastnosti zvuku, akustické javy, rezonanciu priestoru a vzťah medzi zvukom, telom a technológiou. Je autorom zásadných diel 20. storočia, ktoré presúvajú pozornosť od hudobného materiálu k procesu počúvania. V 80. rokoch 20. storočia začal písať skladby pre sólové nástroje, komorné súbory a orchester.

Fero Király je hudobník, kóder a pedagóg so slabosťou pre interdisciplinárne projekty. Je spoluzakladateľ podujatia JAMA a Združenia ooo. Hoci je známy najmä ako klavírny interpret súčasnej vážnej hudby (Philip Glass, Steve Reich a.i.) a člen združenia Cluster ensemble, sólovo sa zaujíma o digitálne technológie, sound art a rôzne presahové umelecké formy.

Eva Vozárová je dramaturgička, performerka, výskumníčka a kultúrna manažérka v slobodnom povolaní. Spoluzakladala umelecké združenie ooo a projekt JAMA v kontexte osobnosti Milana Adamčiaka, v rámci ktorých sa venuje kurátorskej a autorskej činnosti v oblasti soundartu a intermediáneho umenia.

Elia Moretti (1986) is a composer, performer, and researcher exploring the performativity of sound and listening as critical tools within contemporary music theatre. In his interdisciplinary practice, he creates site-specific and participatory projects that intertwine sound, movement, and objects.

In Slovakia, he has worked as curator of the Carpathian New Wave series in Prešov and co-initiated the Symposium Musicum project for the UM UM festival in northern Spiš – later released by the independent label mappa.

His work moves between radio, theatre, and dance, with projects presented throughout Europe. As an educator, he focuses on listening as a relational and transformative act that transcends the boundaries of music.

Tom Johnson (1939–2024) was an American composer, music theorist, and journalist — one of the leading figures of the second generation of minimalists. A student of Morton Feldman, he was active in New York in the 1970s, becoming an important part of the city’s experimental scene. His work is characterized by precise logical structures, conceptual simplicity, and a sense of humor. Johnson created music based on numbers, combinatorics, and mathematical principles, transforming them into surprisingly poetic musical forms. Among his best-known works are An Hour for Piano, Nine Bells, Rational Melodies, and The Chord Catalogue. From 1983 onward, he lived in Paris, where he continued his compositional, publishing, and performance activities.

Emilie Škrijelj (1987) explores the accordion in its smallest folds and uses it both as a percussion instrument and a generator of electroacoustic materials. Inspired by her research around the turntable, modular synths and field recording, she brings the accordion to the abstract territory of electronics by manipulating the bellows, rubbing its contours and exploring its extremities.
www.emilieskrijelj.com

Michael Thieke (1971) is a Berlin-based clarinetist, composer, and performer who is equally at home across a broad range of musical environments. He is exploring the minutiae of sound, timbre and noise, with a particular interest in microtonality and related sound phenomena. The qualities of slowness are another field of his research. He has a preference for long-term collaborations and collective work. Thieke has performed throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and his recordings appear on more than fifty releases.
www.michael-thieke.de

Tom Malmendier (1984) approaches improvisation as the natural and central foundation of his musical practice. He is drawn to transdisciplinary projects and often collaborates with dancers, visual artists, and poets.
www.tomalmendier.com

Marek Kundlák (1981) studied theatre dramaturgy and works across a wide spectrum of artistic expression – from writing librettos, texts, and translations to theatre dramaturgy and directing, performing, composing music for theatre, film, and concert settings, playing experimental instruments, as well as cooking, gardening, and woodworking. He has created and performed in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Italy. He has worked with the Opera of the Slovak National Theatre and is currently a music dramaturg for spoken-word programming at Slovak Radio.

Matej Sloboda (1988) is a Slovak composer, musician, and conductor. He studied composition in Bratislava, Graz, and Vienna, and took part in exchange programs at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, USA. He is the founder of the acclaimed project EnsembleSpectrum and one third of the experimental music collective Critical Band.

Michal Matejka (1977) performs with the bands Ankramu and Škvíry a Spoje, focusing on the possibilities and extended techniques of electric guitar playing, free improvisation, and contemporary song-writer music.

Štefan Szabó (1988) is the author of music for several theatre and dance performances. He performs solo as well as an improviser and composer in the duo Ranjevš & Óbasz and the trio KIN.

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) was a German artist, poet, and avant-garde pioneer associated with the Dada movement. He developed his own branch of Dada, which he called Merz, based on the use of found objects and the beauty of chance and everyday life. He also gave the same name to the art magazine he founded and edited during the 1920s and 1930s. His work encompassed collage, objects, architecture, poetry, and performance. He was active in Hanover, where he created the legendary Merzbau by continually transforming the rooms of his family home at Waldhausenstrasse 5 – a project that grew over several years like a living organism. Before the Second World War, he emigrated to Norway, and later to England.

Vojtěch Šembera (1995) is an experimental vocalist, composer, and opera singer. He focuses on the interpretation and composition of contemporary vocal music, free improvisation, and song repertoire ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. He has performed at festivals such as New Opera Days Ostrava, Exposition of New Music, Dag in de Branding, Sanatorium Sonorum, and the Venice Biennale, where he co-performed pieces by Fero Király as part of Oto Hudec’s Floating Arboretum project. He is one of the few performers in the (Central) European context capable of studying and performing (by heart) the legendary Ursonate by the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters.