Nuno Trocado is a jazz guitarist and composer who is also active in other fields of contemporary music. He studied at the Jazz School of Porto, where he also taught. During his academic studies, Nuno Trocado became progressively more interested in composition and he is currently attending a master degree in Composition and Musical Theory in that same institution. He was the leader of the project Borboletas e Canhões, working on his own compositions. He was also member of the collective Pãodemónio and collaborates in other projects from Porto’s jazz scene. His most recent collaborations involved musicians such as João Guimarães, Diogo Dinis, Marcel Pascual, Morris Kliphuis, Sérgio Tavares, and also the participation of Elisabete Magalhães’s dance piece “Grau Zero”.

Jorge Louraço Figueira (b. 1973) is the author of the plays “Cassandra de Balaclava”, “Xmas qd Kiseres (Christmas quando quiseres)” and “O Espantalho Teso” and directed the theatre play “Conta-me Como É”, with texts by Pedro Marques, Jorge Palinhos and Sandra Pinheiro. In Brazil, he worked with the theatre directors Marco António Rodrigues, Cibele Forjaz and Marcelo Lazzarato, and published the book “Verás Que Tudo É Verdade”, an essay about the theatre company Folias (SP). He has collaborated with several publications, such as Léxico de Pedagogia do Teatro, published by the publishing house Perspectiva, as the magazines Drama, Sinais de Cena, Camarim, Hemisférica, among others, and has been involved in the organization of events, seminars and workshops related to playwriting, both in Portugal and in Brazil. Jorge Louraço published several plays and had other performed in stage, and his play “Êxodos” was nominated for the Prize of Best Playwriting attributed by the APCA – Art Critics Association of São Paulo.

Tom Ward is a musician, composer and computer programmer from Yorkshire, United Kingdom, currently based in London. Originally a saxophonist, during the last years Ward has been exploring the clarinet and the flute. He is the leader of the ensembles which form the project Madwort: Madwort Saxophone Quartet, Madwort’s Mechanical Mindset and Madwort’s Menagerie. The three groups are entirely focused on Tom Ward’s original compositions, performed and interpreted with different instrumentations and arrangements which allow him to explore different interpretations and perspectives of those same compositions. Ward is also a committed and prolific improviser and a member of the septet Quadraceratops, the London based big band Overground Collective and the ensembles Porpoise Corpus and Combustible Alarms Big Band, both directed by Peter Whittingham.

Sérgio Tavares was born in Porto and graduated in music and bass, having studied at ESMAE. He attended workshps and masterclasses with some of the most important contemporary musicians of jazz and improvised music, such as: Carlos Bica, Carlos Barreto, Hein van de Geyn, Bojan Z, Remi Vignolo, Ron Carter, Eddie Gomes, Drew Gress, Zeeena Parkins, Evan Parker, among others. He has been involved in several projects in improvised music and jazz, and he also composed music for cinema and dance. He is currently working in projects such as the PHANTOM TRIO, ARS Trio and DUPLO.DUO, among others.

Catarina Lacerda is graduated in Theatre Studies who has been awarded with the prize Eng. António de Almeida, promoted by the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo (2004), where she now teaches the class of Movement. She is one of the co-founders of the theatre company Teatro do Frio (2005) and CulturDANÇA (2009), projects in which she is also responsible for the artistic coordination. Since 2004, she has worked with the theatre directors João Pedro Vaz, Lee Beagley, Luís Miguel Cintra, Beatri Batarda, Rosário Costa, Rodrigo Malver, Nuno Cardoso, Igor Gandra and Gonçalo Amorim, as well as with film directors Pedro Filipe Marques, Tiago Guedes, Frederico Serra, António Ferreira and Carlos Amaral.

Acácio “Salero” (n. 1967) is a reputed Portuguese drummer and percussionist, and one of the founding members of the Porto’s Jazz Septet and of the innovative percussion ensemble TIM TIM por TIM TUM, alongside with José Salgueiro, Alexandre Frazão and Marco Franco. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with renowned musicians, such as Patrick Brennan, Carla Bley, Steve Swell, Conrad Herwig or Mark Turner, as well as with some of the greatest Portuguese jazz musicians, namely: Zé Eduardo, Rodrigo Amado, Alexandre Frazão, Nuno Rebelo and Paulo Perfeito, among many others. Recently, Acácio Salero has been playing with some of the most prominent musicians of jazz’s latest generation in Portugal, such as guitarist AP and saxophonist Zé Pedro Coelho, and in 2016 he has founded the quartet Salero’s-El Kapitan, exclusively devoted to the drummer’s compositions.