Phillip Golub, "a musician in fast ascent" (Wall Street Journal) and "[a] brilliant improviser" (JazzTimes), is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Los Angeles, he creates highly original and expressive music, grounded in but not constrained by his engaged practice in jazz, creative music, and new music. Technically audacious, Golub sublates distant sound worlds, negating conventions, yet building on traditions. 

Golub was nominated for the "Newcomer of the Year - International" category of the 2025 German Jazz Prize for his debut release as a bandleader, Abiding Memory (Berthold Records/Endectomorph Music). He was a 2025 Jazz artist in residence at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC and the Musician-in-Residence at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC for the fall semester of 2025.  

Golub has been described by critics as "a polymath who elides any divide between improvised and composed music, or jazz and contemporary approaches [...] whose practice can't be contained by genre or discipline" (The Wire Magazine) and as an artist with "seemingly boundless creativity" (Downbeat). The New York Times has noted his “compositional ambitions that transcend genre”. His recordings have been praised as “cutting edge” (Sequence 21), while containing “a profound concept […] triumphant […] fascinating” (Pop Matters). As a player, he has been noted for bringing “assurance, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm” (Steve Smith) to his performances and manifesting “exhilarating energy, charisma, and a canny ability to transform the complex and even inscrutable into sophisticated yet joyful noise” (Allmusic.com).

Golub is in demand as a pianist on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages, performing and recording with a wide variety of artists such as Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Amir ElSaffar, Brad Shepik, Aynur Doğan, and Seajun Kwon. He has performed across the world at venues and festivals in Europe, North America, and Asia.

In addition to leading his own bands and projects, Golub deeply values collaboratively led projects. Golub co-founded the collective Tropos with his colleagues at the New England Conservatory, which released its debut record Axioms // 75ab in 2020 to mark the 75th birthday of Anthony Braxton. A new formation of the ensemble, featuring Yuma Uesaka (clarinets), Ledah Finck (violin), Aaron Edgcomb (drums/percussion), and Golub, was the 2023 recipient of Chamber Music America's Ensemble Forward grant. Tropos worked with mentor Darius Jones on the music for their album Switches, on Endectomorph Music. Golub also performs in a collective duo with Lesley Mok, under the name dream brigade. Mok and Golub released their debut self-titled album on Infrequent Seams.

Golub has an unwavering commitment to honoring the genealogy of jazz. He has played numerous times in bands led by jazz legend Cecil McBee and worked extensively with Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding on their opera … (Iphigenia). He continues to play a crucial role in the Shorter estate, digitizing and preparing manuscripts for publication. Golub holds masters degrees from The New England Conservatory (Jazz Performance) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Composition).

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Elias Stemeseder (*1990), keyboard-instrumentalist, electronic musician and composer. Actively performs on acoustic piano, harpsichord, synthesizers and samplers in projects led by Anna Webber, Adam O’Farrill and Philipp Gropper, among others. Current work includes the electro-acoustic group STEMESEDER – LILLINGER (with Christian Lillinger), the trio Neon Dilemma with Robert Landfermann and Leif Berger as well as collaborative duo with trumpeter Peter Evans and keyboard-instrumentalist Georg Vogel. Further notable collaborators include Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Ingrid Laubrock as well as a longtime membership in the Jim Black Trio with four critically acclaimed releases on Winter&Winter and Intakt records. 

Notable recent releases include UMBRa, PIANO SOLO (both on Intakt Records), PENUMBRA (on Plaist Records) and Ddiofeo (Schattellit Records). Further releases can be found in the catalogues of the labels WeJazz, Klaeng, Winter&Winter, Pirouet and WhyPlayJazz. Elias Stemeseder was an artist in residence at The Stone NYC in September 2022 and is the winner of the 2023 German Jazz Award in the category Pianist/Keyboardist of the Year.

Yuma Uesaka (b.1991) is a Japanese-American saxophonist, clarinetist, improviser, and composer based in New York City since 2014. By way of London, Nagoya, and Detroit, his practice spans jazz, creative improvised music, and new music, shaped by a commitment to experimentation alongside an ongoing engagement with their histories. Yuma works with the physicality of performance and material conditions of sound, using extended techniques, instrumental augmentation, and compositional practice to expand how performers and instruments operate within a musical context. His work moves between improvisation and composition, acoustic and electronic environments, and along the edge between music and noise.

Collaboration is central to Yuma’s musical practice. His work spans a range of contexts, from the intimate duo with NEA Jazz Master pianist Marilyn Crispell on Streams, described by WBGO as “packed with unexpected details and aglow with shared intuition,” to co-led improvising chamber ensembles such as Ocelot and Tropos, both recipients of Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Forward Grant, leading to albums developed under the mentorship of Wadada Leo Smith and Darius Jones, respectively. His duo with multi-reedist David Leon (Thumbs) centers on the juxtaposition of rigor and absurdity, while his duo with laptop artist Simon Kanzler focuses on the interaction between extended woodwind timbres and real-time digital signal processing.

An active sideperson, Yuma has performed in groups led by Anna Webber, Lesley Mok, Mali Obomsawin, Phillip Golub, Alec Goldfarb, Mat Muntz, DoYeon Kim, Annahstasia, Caroline Rose, and Vethaken. He has also performed alongside artists including Mary Halvorson, David Virelles, Adam O’Farrill, Ches Smith, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, and Jacob Garchik. He has appeared at venues such as Roulette, National Sawdust, The Jazz Gallery, and Close Up, and can be heard on Pi, American Dreams, and NotTwo Records. As a composer, he has received recognition from the ASCAP Foundation, Metropolis, and Either/Or Ensemble. In 2025, he was named in both the Clarinet and Soprano Sax Rising Star categories in the DownBeat Critics Poll and Readers Poll. Yuma is a D’Addario Woodwinds artist and plays their reeds.

Alongside his work in formal settings, Yuma remains deeply engaged in Brooklyn’s DIY music community, performing in basements, back rooms of bars, and artist-run spaces. He considers these environments a lifeblood of the creative music scene, where experimentation, collaboration, and community take shape outside institutional frameworks.

Jon Starks, is an American drummer and record producer based in Brooklyn, NY. He is most notably known by his stage name jondownload, and as a member of the acclaimed bands Stice and My trio. He is also a member of experimental surf-rock band Tsons of Tsunami and large ensemble Gargantua, with record releases on Tzadik and Pyroclastic Records, respectively. Starks’ solo performance and recording practice concerns interfacing acoustic drumming with software instruments in real time. In summer of 2023, Starks debuted his experimental theater work ORDER at the historic HERE Arts Center in SoHo, serving as co-director, lighting designer, and sound designer.

                       if amp not available, then stereo DI

                       if amp not available, then one stereo DI and one mono DI

                       if amp/speaker not available, then one mono DI