Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (6 November 1814 – c. 4 February 1894) was a Belgian musical instrument designer and musician who played the flute and clarinet, and is best known for having invented the saxophone.

Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant in Wallonia, Belgium. His father, Charles-Joseph Sax, was an instrument designer himself, who made several changes to the design of the horn. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age, entering two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of fifteen. He subsequently studied those two instruments at the Royal School of Singing in Brussels.

Having left the school, Sax began to experiment with new instrument designs, while his father continued to produce conventional instruments to bring money into the household. Adolphe's first important invention was an improvement of the bass clarinet design, which he patented at the age of twenty-four.

In 1841, Sax relocated permanently to Paris, and began work on a new set of instruments that were exhibited there in 1844. These were valved bugles, and although he had not invented the instrument itself, his examples were so much more successful than those of his rivals that they became known as saxhorns. They range in approximately seven different sizes, and paved the path to the creation of the flugelhorn. Today, they are widely used in concert bands and sometimes in orchestras. The saxhorn also laid the groundwork for the modern euphonium.

Born in Brisbane in 1965, Stephen Page is a descendant from the Nunukul people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh tribe from southeast Queensland. He is the Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Page studied dance at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA), he graduated in 1983 and then danced with the Sydney Dance Company, in 1991 he choreographed Mooggrah for the Sydney Dance Company and Trackers of Oxyrhyncus for the Sydney Theatre Company and a sextet for Opera Australia's Marriage of Figaro. During this time he also toured with the NAISDA associated "Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre".

Stephen danced with the Sydney Dance Company until 1991 when he was appointed Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance Theatre. With his works, Praying Mantis Dreaming, Ninni, and Ochres, Stephen established milestones for Australian dance. In 1996, Stephen made his creative debut with The Australian Ballet, choreographing Alchemy. The following year, he brought The Australian Ballet and Bangarra together in Rites, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The following year Stephen choreographed Fish for Bangarra, with its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Peter Brötzmann (born 6 March 1941) is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.

Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.

He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement^{[citation needed]}, but grew dissatisfied with art galleries and exhibitions. He experienced his first real jazz concert when he saw American jazz musician Sidney Bechet while still in school at Wuppertal, and it made a lasting impression.

He has not abandoned his art training, however: Brötzmann has designed most of his own album covers. He first taught himself to play various clarinets, then saxophones; he is also known for playing the tárogató. Among his first musical partnerships was that with double bassist Peter Kowald.

For Adolphe Sax, Brötzmann's first recording, was released in 1967 and featured Kowald and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson.

1968, the year of political turmoil in Europe, saw the release of Machine Gun, an octet recording often listed among the most notable free jazz albums. Originally the LP was self-produced (under his own "BRO" record label imprint) and sold at gigs, but it was later marketed by Free Music Production (FMP), In 2007, Chicago-based Atavistic Records reissued the Machine Gun recording.

Jeff Coffin (born August 5, 1965) is an American jazz and alternative rock musician best known as the saxophonist for Dave Matthews Band and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. In addition to the saxophone, he plays clarinet, flute and oboe.

After attending the University of New Hampshire, Coffin moved on to study at the University of North Texas, where he graduated with a B.A. in Music Education in 1990. A recipient of a Jazz Studies grant from the NEA, in 1991, he continued to study under the tutelage of Joe Lovano, and began taking students of his own. Although he moved outside the confines of the educational realm, entering the Nashville music scene during the same year, he continued to be interested in teaching about music.

He has been a member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since March 1997, and performed on every Flecktones album from 1998's Left of Cool through 2008's "Jingle All the Way".

Coffin is still listed as a band member on the Flecktones website, but he has stated that touring requirements for Dave Matthews Band preclude his touring with The Flecktones. He does not appear on the latest album, Rocket Science, which features original band member Howard Levy in his place.

Mauricio Kagel (December 24, 1931 – September 18, 2008) was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance (Grimshaw 2009).

Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into a Jewish family which fled from Russia in the 1920s (Anon. [n.d.]). He studied music, history of literature, and philosophy in Buenos Aires (Grimshaw 2009). In 1957 he came as a scholar to Cologne, Germany, where he lived until his death.

From 1960–66 and 1972–76, he taught at the International Summer School at Darmstadt (Attinello 2001).

He taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1964 to 1965 as Slee Professor of music theory and at the Berlin Film and Television Academy as a visiting lecturer. He served as director of courses for new music in Gothenburg and Cologne (Attinello 2001). He was professor for new music theatre at the Cologne Conservatory from 1974 to 1997.

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the second composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 1991. In 2000 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.