ERIKA SHAUNA PEREIRA

Holly Dayle

Born: July 29

Holly Dayle is a gifted jazz vocalist whose warm, classically trained voice evokes the timeless grace of artists like Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, and Laufey. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, Holly brings emotional depth and polish to every performance — whether interpreting classics like "At Last" or performing her own original songs, heard on streaming platforms worldwide.

That polish is grounded in serious training. Holly holds a formal music degree and trained under Dr. Raymond Gibbs — a tenor who sang eleven years with the Metropolitan Opera, in leading roles including Rodolfo in La Bohème, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande. Holly was, in effect, his protégée, and training of that caliber builds the breath control, placement, and range that free a singer to cross genres — it is the foundation under everything she sings. In jazz especially, that foundation shows: the technique disappears, and what remains is ease, phrasing, and the freedom to improvise without ever losing the line of the song. It is why her interpretations carry both technical excellence and soulful storytelling that resonates across generations.

Yupika Quintet

Active since: 2001

Yupika Quintet is a well-established contemporary jazz ensemble with over two decades of musical history, featuring New York City-based vocalist Ivana Kotov.

Reborn, released internationally on October 30, 2026, presents original contemporary jazz album with six original compositions,  featuring sophisticated harmonies, dynamic improvisation, and distinctive ensemble interplay.

The album brings together the expressive freedom of modern jazz and the soulful influences of gospel and soul, creating a distinctive musical identity that bridges contemporary jazz traditions and New York’s soulful vocal artistry.

Athanas Gounov

Born: April 6, 1967

Athanas N. Gounov, also known as Vocoder Man, is a Bulgarian jazz composer, improvising pianist and bandleader. A philosopher, author and interdisciplinary artist, he has worked across music, writing, visual art and film, with jazz remaining a central thread throughout his creative life.

He emerged on the Bulgarian jazz scene in the late 1980s, founding a trio and later a quartet devoted primarily to original music. He performed at prominent Sofia concert venues, including Bulgaria Chamber Hall and the National Palace of Culture (NDK), and at festivals throughout the country. He also appeared abroad on occasion, including in Austria, France and Germany. During the 1990s, he developed a distinctive harmonic language within the contemporary national jazz landscape, through repertoire built largely around his own compositions. In 1997, he released The End of History, an original album recorded with prominent Bulgarian jazz musicians, including Antoni Donchev, Rumen Toskov and Vassil Parmakov. The album is still remembered within Bulgaria’s jazz community as a representative recording of the period.

Apulia Art Ensemble

The Apulia Art Ensemble (AAE) was founded in Puglia in 2024 from an idea shared by Nicolò Marziale and M° Livio Minafra, with the aim of creating a permanent workshop dedicated to producing original music, nurturing young musicians and searching for a new contemporary musical language rooted in Mediterranean culture.

The ensemble brings together young musicians from the Conservatories of Bari, Monopoli and Matera, selected for their technical quality, interpretive sensitivity and creative ability. The group brings into dialogue contemporary jazz, improvisation, academic composition, Apulian and Mediterranean traditions, Balkan and rock influences, giving rise to an original musical research with a strong identity of its own.

Ari Lahdekorpi

Ari Lahdekorpi is a Canadian jazz/blues guitarist and composer based in Chilliwack, BC . He was born in Parkano, Finland but has spent most of his life in Canada. Ari’s musical journey began as a back-up musician for a traveling faith healer. He has since worked as a staff musician for leading recording studios, played sideman for artists ranging in style from pop to jazz through to country music. In the mid-eighties Ari began a solo recording career and has since recorded 12 albums as leader. He has worked as a composer for film and television, most notably on the award winning NFB feature film, Letters from Karelia

Boris Acosta-Jaramillo

Born: November 17, 1978

Boris Acosta-Jaramillo is a pianist, composer, producer, improviser, and educator whose work moves across jazz, contemporary composition, and improvised music. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, he holds a Ph.D. in Music from the University of California San Diego, where his work brought together performance, composition, and research into improvisation and musical interaction. Acosta-Jaramillo has performed internationally and collaborated with artists including Yang Haisong, Annie Cheng, Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts, Antony Burr, and Mark Dresser. His career also includes more than two decades as an educator, including serving as a jazz studies professor at Nanjing University of the Arts

Lucianne Evans

Born: July 22, 1969

Lucianne Evans | Biography

Lucianne Evans is a Pittsburgh-born jazz vocalist and songwriter whose career has taken her through Montreal, New York, Asheville, and back to Pittsburgh.

In her twenties, a summer seminar in Colorado with Oregon, the recording group associated with the groundbreaking ECM label, led her to Montreal, where she appeared with her band at the early Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. There she worked with leading musicians including Sari Dajani, James Gelfand and Reg Wilson, and appeared on Canadian television. Those years helped shape a musical identity that reached beyond traditional vocal jazz.

Mario Wellmann

Mario Wellmann is a Chilean guitarist, composer and music theorist whose work explores contemporary jazz, Chilean musical traditions and the relationship between place and memory. He has performed throughout the Americas and Europe, including appearances at Blues Alley, The Django, Jazz Forum, the Elkhart Jazz Festival, and Sala Master. He received two DownBeat Student Music Awards in 2022.

His debut album as a leader, Ecos del Sur, is scheduled for release on December 4, 2026. Recorded at Greyfade Studio in New York and co-produced with Grammy-winning engineer Joseph Branciforte, it features Guillermo López on double bass and Daniel Dufour on drums. Five trio compositions and five solo interludes trace an imagined road trip through south-central Chile. The album’s production received support from Chile’s Fondo de la Música in 2026. Wellmann’s recording credits include Alexa Torres Quartet’s In Situ, to which he contributed as guitarist, composer and co-producer; Of Narratives & Nocturnes with the Simeon Davis Group; I Carry Your Heart with UNT Jazz Singers; and 5th Harvest with UNT Latin Jazz Lab. His composition “Consolidation” was featured in Strings Magazine. He also co-leads Torres & Wellmann.

Diego Allieri

Diego Allieri è un pianista e musicista che elegge il jazz d'avanguardia nel proprio territorio di 
sperimentazione. Definito dalla critica per la sua regia passionale e argomentata, Allieri fonde l'universo di Monk, Tatum e Powell con le avanguardie storiche di Schönberg e Stockhausen. La sua cifra stilistica traccia percorsi audaci e dialoghi transatlantici, impressioni nelle tracce di album speculari e profonde come "Union Street" e "Equilibri Precari", dove la totale libertà espressiva incontra un rigore strutturale unico.