Composer, saxophonist and sound artist. He works on the musicality of spoken words and unusual aspects of spoken communication and produced text-sound compositions featured in live performances, radio broadcastings and recordings for labels of experimenta l music in. In his work he moves on the line between sound anthropology and composition. Field research and interviews often build the basis for his abstract compositions. As a saxophonist he has developed an original instrumental language that incorporat es extended techniques, noises, and a strong influence from electronic music. Performances in all European countries, USA and Japan. Broadcastings and record releases in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, New Zealand, USA. Lives and works in Berlin

Wade Matthews

American improviser, composer and author, Wade Matthews, has been living in Madrid, Spain, since 1989. Besides his solo concerts (London, Madrid, Barcelona, New York, Berlin, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Beirut, Tenerife, Montevideo, Palma de Mallorca, etc.), he performs frequently in duo with Norwegian Percussionist, Ingar Zach, Toulouse-based dancer Valérie Métivier and with the New York-based American flutist Jane Rigler (most recently in John Zorn¹s new club, ³The Stone² in NYC). Besides these fixed grou ps, Matthews has worked with improvisers such as Burkhard Beins, Annette Krebs, Peter Kowald and Andrea Neumann (Germany), Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévôst, John Butcher, Phil Durrant, and Rhodri Davies (United Kingdom), Lê Quan Ninh, David Chièsa, Jean Pallan dre and Martine Altenburger (France), Gino Robair (U.S.A.), Agustí Fernández and Joan Saura (Spain), etc.

Matthews earned his Doctor of Musical Arts from Columbia University in New York, where he studied composition and electronic music with Mario Davidovsky before writing his dissertation on improvisation guided by electronic sounds. Previous studies include woodwinds with Joe Allard at the New England Conservatory and Analysis with Bruce Mather at the Paris Conservatory as well as composition with John Ronsheim at Antioch College. Last year he received a commission from the French Government (Commande d¹Eta t) to create a work exploring the possible relations between acoustic instruments and various techniques of phonography. The work, titled Lieux, was premièred at the festival Rencontres de Musique et Quotidien Sonor in southern France in May, 2004.

Critics have written: "he combines some of the greatest capacities of his instrument; a beautiful sound, avant garde ideas, and an expressive ability that hits home". (El País, 3/9/89) According to El Independiente Matthews is "a man of abundant ideas... ...a constant and enveloping sonic adventure..."

Jack Wright

Alto, soprano, tenor saxophones; contralto clarinet; piano Born Pittsburgh PA in 1942 and grew up around Philadelphia and Chicago. He began playing saxophone in 1952, with private instruction; meanwhile also singing in groups large and small through 1964, after which he ceased playing music. Attended Lafayette C ollege in Easton PA, where he studied European history and literature and graduated 1964; Johns Hopkins University, MA, 1966; taught history at Temple U. 1968-72, after which he left the academic world. In this latter period he was involved in politics, o rganizing on a community level.

In the late seventies he returned to music in earnest, and began playing free improvised music on the saxophone, and piano. He sought out partners in NY and the East Coast, then in 1983 began extensive tours in Europe, which continued until 1986. In the U S his partners were Toshi Makihara, Jim Meneses, William Parker, Todd Whitman; in Europe he performed with Hannes Bauer, Joe Sachse, Wigald Boning, Lars Rudolph, Wittwulf Malik, Peter Hollinger, Bernhard Arndt, and Andreas Stehle, touring Germany, England , Switzerland and Italy. In 1984 he began touring the US, either as soloist or with his European partners, Roger Turner and Lars Rudolph, and an American dancer from Chicago, Bob Eisen. In this period of the eighties his music would be considered free jaz z, very full and expressive. He was known for playing in places that had never been exposed to free improvisation, and encouraging young players everywhere, such that he was generally considered the ³Johnny Appleseed² of North American free improvisation.

In 1988 he moved to Boulder CO and got involved in painting and writing, yet continued to tour the US regularly. In the late nineties there was a resurgence of interest in non-idiomatic free improvisation in the US, especially coming from Boston, but incr easingly throughout the country. In 2000 Wright did an extensive tour of the West Coast with Boston soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey, and recorded with him in three different groups. His music became largely sound-oriented, using space, texture, and sustai ned tones, but always with a characteristic energy and musicality. He moved back to the East Coast in 2003 to be closer to his playing partners and now lives in Easton PA. Since then he has become closely involved with the New York scene.

He has presented his music at most of the new improv festivals in the US: four years at High Zero in Baltimore, The Seattle Improv Festival, the SFALT Festival in the Bay Area, California, the Autumn Uprising in Boston, and the Improvised and Otherwise Fe stival in Brooklyn. In recent years he has renewed his label, Spring Garden Music, which presents his own music and that of his partners. He continues to seek out new partners, and recently returned to Europe to that end, performing with John Butcher, Ton y Wren, John Russell, Birgit Uhler, Axel Doerner, Carl-Ludwig Huebsch, Thomas Lehn, LeQuan Ninh, and Michel Doneda. He also played privately with Tim Hodgkinson, Uli Phillipp, Wolfgang Schliemann, Martin Theurer, Andrea Neumann, Michael Griener, Sabine Vo gel, and Phil Durrant, among others.

Nate Wooley (b. 1974 Clatskanie, Oregon)

Nate grew up in Clatskanie, Oregon, a finnish-american fishing and timber town. He has spent most of his musical life whole-heartedly embracing the space between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same. Nate¹s trumpet playing is con sidered an organic mixture of the lower-case, new music, free jazz, and noise improvisation traditions. In the context of trumpet improvisation, he has worked diligently to keep one musical foot firmly planted outside of the recognized lineage.

Nate currently resides in Jersey City, NJ and performs solo trumpet improvisations as well as with his trio Blue Collar with Steve Swell and Tatsuya Nakatani. He has also performed with Anthony Braxton, Bhob Rainey, John Butcher, Alessandro Bosetti, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe Morris, Fritz Welch, Herb Robertson, Kevin Norton, Tony Malaby, Randy Peterson, Tim Barnes, Tony Buck, Okkyung Lee, Assif Tsahar, and other improvisation luminaries.

The current manifestation of Snuff Messiah features Tex Messiah on guitar, Snuff Alice on bass, and Rick on drums.

Other notable facts about Snuff Messiah include the fact that there are three of them.

Snuff Messiah would like to take this opportunity to reiterate their anti-kidnapping message: ³It creates more problems than it solves² they say.