Brian has studied all over the world, including: New York, The Hague Conservatory for Music and The Banff Centre canada. He has received lessons from a vast array of jazz musicians and composers, perhaps most notably; Thad Jones, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Leibman, Wynton Marsalis, Bob Brookmeyer, Dave Holland etc etc...
He teaches Jazz improvisation at Newpark Music Centre and is a tuor in Jazz studies in Trinity College Dublin.
Brian is a founder member of both The Dublin Jazz Collective and the Irish Jazz Orcherstra and also performs regularly with Trouble Penetrator and many other groups.
Nick has a degree in jazz studies from Newpark music centre and is currently studying with Gilad Atzmon in London and has also undertaken further study in New York under Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Vijay Iyer and Peter Epstein, and in Hungary at Kodaly Institute.
He has performed at numerous venues and festivals around the world, most notably the Royal Albert Hall London, the Sziget Festival Budapest, La Festa di Strada Napoli, Festival of Flight London, Ujhullam Festival Tiszakecske, and the Edinburgh Festival.
He is the artistic director of the Kai Big Band and Yurodny, and also performs with the RISE Saxophone Quartet, among others.
Cathal has a Masters in Music Performance from the Dublin Institute of Technology. For his Thesis he worked on Phonology (the structure of speech) for the development of quarter-tone saxophone composition and improvisation.
He has also studied speech transcription with Jason Moran and with saxophonists Tim Berne and Ravi Coltrane in New York.
Cathal has also worked a lot with contemporary dance and performs regularly with the Kai Big Band, the Zoid ensemble and the Rise Saxophone quartet among others.
Derek has an honers degree in Jazz studies and Jazz Performance from Newpark music centre. He teaches bass in the Rathfarnam school of music and has also given master classes in several colleges around the Dublin area.
Derek performs regularly with Mike Nielsen, Connor Guilfoyle, Phil Ware, Joe O’Callaghan and the Jenna Harris Quintet among others.
He also lead a group dedicated solely to the music of Tim Berne called The Jalapeño Diplomacy. It’s function is to explore Tim Berne’s music and to use his music to develop approaches to composition.
Dylan Rynhart is a composer of many genres. He founded award winning jazz orchestra Fuzzy Logic Ensemble and recorded the first album of his music with them in 2005.
Dylan has scored music for theatre, an award winning short film and became involved in electro acoustic composition and surround sound through his masters in music technology from Trinity college. He has also received commissions to write for contemporary classical ensembles, including sax and string quartets.
Dylan is represented by both the Contemporary music centre and the Improvised music centre, and is currently working on his PhD in music composition with composer John Godfrey, in U.C.C.
Phil Macmullan studied Percussion and Drum kit in the College of Music DIT under Monica Bonnie and has an L.G.S.M. grade 8.
He has studied privately with the late John Wadham and renowned American drummer Jamie Haddad, and was also awarded an A.G.S.M. In Jazz Performance diploma for his studies in Newpark music centre.
He now teaches music in St.Conleths College, Dublin.
Phil formed his group “Cortisol” in 2005 and has recently released their first album. He also performs regularly with “Yurodny”, Dorothy Murphy, Honor Heffernan, “Wicked Meal” and many others.
Colm studied performance in the Royal Conservatory, Den Haag, and in Lucerne, Switzerland where he studied with Nils Wogram. Colm has performed in numerous jazz festivals with such musicians as Kenny Wheeler and Michael Brecker and was a member of the European Youth Jazz Orchestra for their '07 summer tour of Europe and China.
Sue studied Music at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth where she obtained a BA Hons Music and MA Music (Historical Studies). She studies voice part time at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Virginia Kerr and has recently participated in masterclasses with Nicholas Clapton, Dame Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb.
Sue is a Lay Vicar Choral at Christchurch Cathedral Dublin, runs acapella Vocal Trio “Animae”, and performs Lute songs with Chris Goodwin & Jeni Melia. Sue has also studied improvisation in Newpark music centre Blackrock, where she teaches singing.
Joe has been playing guitar since about the age of 15. Initially self-taught, he mainly played rock and blues guitar. He later studied classical guitar for about two years and gave numerous recitals. He became more interested in jazz and studied in Newpark Music Centre with Tommy Halferty and Ronan Guilfoyle.
Over the following years he won a scholarship to Skidmore jazz college in USA. Here he studied under Milt Hinton and Pat LaBarbara amongst others. Following this he moved to Australia for a year and played in Sydney with many Australian jazz musicians. On his return he completed the LGSM diploma in 2000.
