"[...] Julia Úlehla is an interarts performer, composer, scholar, and cultural worker whose critical and creative practices engage ancestry, traditional culture, and radical forms of experimentation. Her practice is rooted first and foremost in the embodied voice-as a powerful nexus of the material, spiritual, ethno-cultural, and socio-political.

Early in her career, Julia trained as an opera singer, completing a BA in Music (Vocal Performance) at Stanford University and an MMus in Vocal Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music. She left classical singing to become a member of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, a laboratory theatre company in Pontedera, Italy where renowned director Jerzy Grotowksi engaged in a phase of embodied research known as "Art as Vehicle." After leaving the Workcenter, Julia relocated to New York City to have a child and began collaborations with composer/saxophonist Darius Jones as an original member of his Elizabeth-Caroline Unit. Soon after she moved to Vancouver and completed a PhD in Ethnomusicology at UBC. Her doctoral research-creation focused on "living song" vis-a-vis an ancestral song tradition carried by generations of her family members. As a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Cultural Studies at Queens University, her subsequent research-creation project explored the "extra-rational" possibilities of the voice, extending the theoretical account of "living song" into ethical praxis, and developing methods for voice, movement, text, image, theatre, and installation in a community of collaborative artists. Julia's embodied research spans performance disciplines and milieus including devised and laboratory theatre, experimental and creative music, installation, opera, oratorio, cabaret, new music, musical theatre, dance and movement research, traditional music and folklore, ethnography, and improvisation.

As a vocal performer, improviser, and composer she has performed at the Monheim Triennale, FIMAV (Victoriaville), Colours of Ostrava, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, BAM Fisher, P.S. 1, Festival de Arte Sacra, Old Town School of Folk Music, Stràźnice International Folklore Festival, Folk Holidays, Bimhuis, Palac Akropolis, Western Front, and many others. Julia is currently vocalist and creative director of the critically acclaimed avant-folk ensemble Dálava, with whom she regularly performs throughout North America and Europe. As a composer and vocalist, she has recorded on Pi Recordings (2025), Songlines Recordings (2017), and Sanasar Records (2014).

As an actress and deviser, she has performed at the Grotowski Institute (Wrocław), Teatro Era, Baryshnikov Arts Center, SFMOMA, the Performance Art Institute, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Palazzo Ducale, Fabbrica Europa Festival, Villa Romana, Sirenos Festival, New York Live Arts, BRIC, Movement Research at The Judson Church, Danspace, La Fonderie, and others.

In addition to a private teaching studio, she has led workshops, colloquia, term courses, and guest lectures in theatre and music departments at Stanford University, Yale University, Sapienza Universitá di Roma, University of Torino, The Graduate Center at CUNY, Masaryk University, Capilano University, SFU Woodward's, University of Minnesota, and at theatre companies such as SITI Company, LAVA Studios, Leimay, Teatro Akropolis, the Grotowski Institute, Divadlo Continuo, and many others.

Her scholarship has appeared in the journals Performance Matters (2023) and Ethnomusicology Translations (2018), as a co-authored chapter in Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling Ways of Knowing through Indigenous Relationships(2019), and at academic colloquia including the Society for Ethnomusicology, Analytical Approaches to World Music, British Forum for Ethnomusicology, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, Great Lakes Associate for Sound Studies, From Folklore to World Music.

In addition to her work as a performer and deviser, Julia currently teaches as a Sessional Lecturer in UBC's School of Music. She recently completed a curatorial position of Artistic Associate at Music on Main Society, where she worked to develop a platform for Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh artists and for community-engaged programming. She lives as an uninvited guest on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people."

"The music of guitarist, composer and educator Aram Bajakian has been called "a masterpiece" (fRoots, July 2017), "shape-shifting" (FreeJazzCollective, January 2017), and "astonishing" (Georgia Straight, March 2017).

As an instrumentalist, Bajakian had the privilege of performing alongside Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed during his last two tours in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, Bajakian toured in Diana Krall's band, performing over 100 concerts with the multiple-Grammy-award-winning singer, along with violinist Stuart Duncan (Yo-Yo Ma's Goat Rodeo, Robert Plant) and drummers Karriem Riggins (Kanye West, Common, J-Dilla) and Jay Bellerose (Elton John, Rhiannon Giddens). Through these tours and others, Bajakian has had the opportunity to play in many of the world's greatest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Acropolis, L'Olympia, as well as the Montreaux, Newport, Northsea, Monterey and Antibes jazz festivals, among others.

Bajakian's collaboration with his wife, vocalist, actress and ethnomusicologist, Julia Ulehla, entitled Dálava, reimagines folk songs collected over 100 years ago from a single village in Moravia by her great-grandfather. Their performances and two albums have received universal critical acclaim. Dálava's latest album, The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines, 2017) was listed by the Georgia Straight as one of "50 Albums That Shaped Vancouver" in their May 2017 edition celebrating the magazine's 50th year in print. Bastiaan Springer, in his August 2017 fRoots review said, "Every now and then an album appears that is so overwhelming and so intense that it is hard to put into any category. Such is the case with The Book Of Transfigurations, the second release by Dálava...Saying that The Book Of Transfigurations is a masterpiece is not an exaggeration."

Bajakian's 2014 solo guitar album, Music Inspired by the Color of Pomegranates, an alternate soundtrack to Parajanov's iconic film, received 4.5 stars from All About Jazz and was featured in the documentary Shepherds in the Cave, which tells the story of the restoration of frescoes in ancient Italian caves. there were flowers also in hell (2014, Sanasar Records), was called "One of the best instrumental rock records of recent years," by New York Music Daily. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said of the album, "Every track singular, every track strong. A MINUS." Released by John Zorn's Tzadik Label, Aram Bajakian's Kef, which explores Armenian dance music of the same name, was listed as one of the Best World Music Albums of 2011 by PopMatters.

Bajakian has worked with numerous artists over the years and has been featured on several of composer and saxophonist John Zorn's projects. Bajakian performs in bassist Shanir Blumenkranz' (Yo-Yo Ma, Cyro Baptista) band Abraxas, which has recorded two albums of John Zorn's music: Book of Angels Volume 19, and Psychomagia. Bill Milkowski called their first album a "Twin 6 String assault," in Downbeat Magazine. A third album of material, entitled Book Beriah: Gevurah, was released in 2018 as part of an 11 CD box set which also featured albums by Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Julian Lage and Secret Chiefs 3.

Since 2014, Bajakian has performed in Frank London's (The Klemzatics) Glass House Orchestra, which recreates the musical culture of Hungarian Jewish communities destroyed by the Holocaust. Their debut record was nominated for three German Critics' Best of the Year Awards in October 2017.

Bajakian received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he studied with Dr. Yusef Lateef. He holds a Masters Degree in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the University of British Columbia, where he studied electronic music with Dr. Keith Hamel. When not touring, he works as the Music Curator for the Western Front in Vancouver, one of Canada's leading artist run spaces for art and new music."

"Cellist, improviser, composer Peggy Lee was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She studied classical cello, completing a bachelors degree in performance at the University of Toronto as a student of Vladimir Orloff and Denis Brott. She furthered her studies on the cello with lessons with Martha Gerschefski in Atlanta Georgia. In the fall of 1988 Peggy began a year residency with a string quartet at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. It was here that she first became interested in collaborating with artists from different mediums and in veering away from the classical path. This led to a decision to move away from the known and thus to her relocating to Vancouver, B.C. where she now makes her home.

Peggy's first forays into improvisation in Vancouver happened with dancers at the EDAM (experimental dance and music) studio at the Western Front and eventually led to her meeting and joining guitarists Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson in their respective bands; as well as becoming a member of the New Orchestra Workshop, which went on to have interesting and fruitful collaborations with Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, René Lussier, Barry Guy and George Lewis.

Peggy continues to collaborate frequently with Ron and Tony and with her husband, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, as well as with many other longtime musical associates including Dave Douglas, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Veda Hille and Lisa Miller. She also leads or co-leads a number of musical projects: The Peggy Lee Band, Film in Music, Waxwing (with Tony Wilson and Jon Bentley) and Beautiful Tool (with Mary Margaret O'Hara).

She has also collaborated extensively in theatre and dance with companies and artists such as Ruby Slippers, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House, David Hudgins, Peter Bingham and Delia Brett.

In 2005, Peggy received the Freddie Stone Award for integrity and innovation in music and in 2010 she was awarded a Jesse Richardson Theatre Award for outstanding composition."

"Joshua Zubot is a musician who spent his younger years honing his skills in the West. Gaining ground internationally, Josh toured with the former Barrage group from 1997-2002.

Moving to Montreal in 2003, Josh finished his BFA in Electroacoustic Studies after 4 years. In 2005, he produced his first solo album, Crouched Head, on the Drip Audio Label.

He now freelances full-time as a violinist. Mainly, Josh is a performer/composer fusing many means of styles through his violin. These styles range from somewhere in the middle of jazz, free jazz, avant garde, contemporary classical, folk, improvisational, rock and electronic.

Since then he has developped through the avant-garde scene in Montreal producing his own albums: Subtle Lip Can, Mendham, and Land of Marigold.

Over the last decade, Josh has played with numerous different groups and individuals. Some collaborations were with Chad VanGaalen, Lori Freedman, Patrick Watson, William Parker, Pierre-Yves Martel, Michael Blake, Bernard Falaise, Rainer Wiens, Michel F Coté, Sam Shalabi, Miles Perkin, Myra Melford, Marshall Allen, Fred Frith, Matana Roberts, Jean Derome, Malcom Goldstein, Pierre Tanguay, Martha Wainwright, John Butcher, to name a few.

Josh performed in the Mozg Festival (Poland),International Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Guelph Jazz Festival, X Avant New Music Festival L'Off Festival de Jazz de Montreal, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Sound Travels (Sound Art Festival in Toronto), Guelph Jazz Festival, Osheaga, Pop Montreal, NXNE, as well as numerous festival circuits in Europe."