Trumpeter Avishai Cohen – voted a Rising Star in the 2012 DownBeat Critics Poll – has earned renown as a musician with an individual sound and a questing spirit, an ever-creative player- composer open to multiple strains of jazz and active internationally as a leader, co-leader and sideman. , JazzTimes declared: “Cohen is a multi-cultural jazz musician, among whose ancestors is Miles Davis. Like Davis, he can make the trumpet a vehicle for uttering the most poignant human cries.” Avishai played a headlining set at the 2011 Newport Jazz Festival, leading his thrilling trio Triveni with double-bassist Omer Avital and drummer Nasheet Waits. Anzic Records will release the trio’s second album, Triveni II – Avishai’s sixth recording as a leader – in October 2012. The trumpeter also records and tours the world as part of the prestigious SFJAZZ Collective, as he does with The 3 Cohens Sextet – the hit family band with his sister, clarinetist-saxophonist Anat, and brother, saxophonist Yuval. With The 3 Cohens, Avishai has twice headlined the hallowed Village Vanguard, as well as appeared on the cover of the January 2012 issue of DownBeat. He is also co- leader of Third World Love, a longstanding multicultural venture with bassist Omer Avital, pianist Yonatan Avishai and drummer Daniel Freedman.

Multiple Grammy Nominee and Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón represents a select group of musicians who have masterfully balanced and blended the often contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. Widely considered as one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists of his generation, he has also developed a unique voice as a composer and as a conceptualist, concentrating his efforts on perfecting a fine mix between Latin American Folkloric Music and Jazz. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has released six recordings as a leader including the Grammy Nominated Alma Adentro (2011), which is a tribute to the Puerto Rican Songbook. As a sideman he has worked with jazz luminaries such as Charlie Haden, David Sánchez, The Mingus Big Band, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, Bobby Hutcherson, Steve Coleman and the SFJAZZ Collective.

Zenón has been featured in articles on publications such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, as well as gracing the cover of Down Beat Magazine. He has also toped the Rising Star Alto Sax category of the Down Beat Critic's Poll on four different occasions. As a composer, he has been commissioned by SFJAZZ, The New York State Council for the Arts, Chamber Music America, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and many of his peers. Zenón has given hundreds of lectures and master classes at institutions all over the world, and is a permanent faculty member at New England Conservatory of Music. In 2011 he founded Caravana Cultural, a program which presents free Jazz concerts in rural areas of Puerto Rico.

In April 2008, Zenón received a fellowship from the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Later that year he was one of 25 distinguished individuals chosen to receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant."

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