LEONARD COHEN
Leonard Norman Cohen was born in Montreal, PQ in 1934. His father, an engineer who owned a clothing concern, died when Cohen was nine. He went on to attend McGill University, where at 17 he formed a country-western trio called the Buckskin Boys. He also began writing poetry and became part of the local boho-literary scene, a scene so "underground" that it was bereft of 'subversive intentions because even that would be beneath it." His first collection of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956, while he was still an undergraduate. The Spice Box Of Earth (1961), his second collection, catapulted Leonard Cohen to international recognition.

After a brief stint at Columbia University in New York, Cohen obtained a grant and was able to escape the confines of North America. He traveled throughout Europe and eventually settled on the Greek island of Hydra, where he shared his life with Marianne Jenson, and her son Axel. Cohen stayed in Greece on and off for seven years. He wrote two more collections of poetry, the controversial Flowers For Hitler (1964) and Parasites of Heaven (1966); and two highly acclaimed novels, The Favorite Game (1963), his portrait of the artist as a young Jew in Montreal, and Beautiful Losers (1966), described on its dust jacket as "a disagreeable religious epic of incomparable beauty." Upon its publication, the Boston Globe declared, "James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen." To date, each book has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

HAL WILLNER, Curator
Hal Willner is among the most eclectic and original producers in contemporary music, helming a series of wildly ambitious concept albums and live shows which tapped the talents of artists running the gamut from pop to jazz to the avant-garde. Growing up in the sixties and seventies, he turned childhood obsessions of TV variety shows, sixties FM, comedy albums, and any music that his classmates hated into an inimitable career. He first earned notice in 1981 with Amarcord Nino Rota, a tribute to the legendary composer best known for his collaborations with filmmaker Federico Fellini. In addition to contributions from pop icon Debbie Harry and jazz piano great Jaki Byard, the collection also featured appearances by then-unknowns Wynton Marsalis and Bill Frisell. That same year, Willner signed on as the music supervisor for the long-running NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, a position he still holds.

That's the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk, which included interpretations by Dr. John, Joe Jackson, and John Zorn among others, came out in 1984, and a year later Willner produced Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, featuring Sting, Tom Waits, and Lou Reed. After turning to film with work on a pair of 1987 projects, Heaven and Candy Mountain, a year later Willner earned considerable notice for Stay Awake, a tribute to the classic music of Walt Disney's animated films which featured Ringo Starr, Sun Ra, Waits again, Sin´ead O'Connor, and other diverse luminaries. Animated music remained one of Willner's preoccupations in the years to follow, and in 1990 he assembled The Carl Stalling Project, a collection of vintage cartoon scores from the legendary Warner Bros. studio composer. (A sequel appeared in 1995.)

In 1989, Willner began a stint as producer on the innovative but short-lived syndicated television series Michelob Presents, Night Music. In 1992 his album Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus, another all-star tribute, featured Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, and Henry Rollins. A year later, he collaborated with filmmaker Robert Altman on the acclaimed Short Cuts, a working relationship which extended into 1996's Kansas City and its accompanying Robert Altman's Jazz '34. He has worked as music supervisor on numerous other films, including Finding Forrester and the Will Farrell hit Talladega Nights.

After wrapping up 1998's Closed on Account of Rabies: Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (spotlighting performances by Iggy Pop, Ken Nordine, and Jeff Buckley), Willner signed to Howie B.'s Pussyfoot label to release his proper solo debut, Whoops, I'm an Indian! More recently Willner collaborated with Robert Wilson on the theater piece White Town in Copenhagen, produced the sound track to Stormy Weather, a biopic about Harold Arlen, featuring among others Jimmy Scot, Shannon McNalley, Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright, Eric Mingus and Sandra Bernhardt, and has dreamed up and/or presided over a host of unique multi-artist live events. These include The Harry Smith Project (at Royal Albert Hall, London and Royce Hall, Los Angeles); Closed on Account of Rabies and Never Bet the Devil Your Head, two Halloween evenings of Edgar Allan Poe (Royce Hall); The Doc Pomus Project (St. Mark's Church, New York); Shock & Awe: The Songs of Randy Newman (Royce Hall); Let's Eat! Feasting on the Firesign Theater (Royce Hall); the Rainforest Benefit (Carnegie Hall); Dream Comfort Memory Despair: An Evening of Songs by Neil Young (Celebrate Brooklyn Festival); Perfect Partners: Frederico Fellini and Nino Rota (the Barbican, London); and Came So Far for Beauty: An Evening of Leonard Cohen Songs (Celebrate Brooklyn festival 2003, the Brighton Dome for the Brighton Festival 2004, the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney Festival 2005; the Point for the Dublin International Theatre Festival 2006). Recent albums produced by Willner include Bill Frisell's Unspeakable, which won a Best Jazz Album Grammy in 2005, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man the Motion Picture Soundtrack, which captures performances for the Brighton and Sydney productions of Came So Far for Beauty, and Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, which includes contributions from Bono, Sting, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson, Gavin Friday, Van Dyke Parks, Andrea Corr and Rufus Wainwright among others.

JANINE NICHOLS, Associate Curator
Janine Nichols has been a creative producer of live music since 1977, gathering critical and professional acclaim. For the last few years, she has been staging thematic, multi-artist "concept shows" with producer Hal Willner. The team is recently collaborated on a survey of Neil Young's music for Celebrate Brooklyn, the open-air concert series in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY in June 2004. Nichols began her career as music coordinator for Saturday Night Live, in the glory years between 1976-80, alongside music director Howard Shore. She remained with the show's production company, Broadway Video, through 1984, first as sound consultant for the syndication of SNL, then as music supervisor for the short-lived comedy series, The New Show. In 1985, she joined the program staff of Arts at St. Ann's (ASA), and by 1988, she was program director and her concert series captured the attention of both great artists and the press. During her tenure, the estranged founders of the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and John Cale were re-united for their song cycle in memory of Andy Warhol, Songs for ‘Drella; Marianne Faithfull delivered her "definitive" (New York Times) performances of the Brecht/Weill masterwork, The Seven Deadly Sins; Bryter Layter, a multi-artist hommage, revived the catalogue of the late British songwriter Nick Drake; and the guitarist Bill Frisell toured the world with his enchanting scores for six films of Buster Keaton commissioned by ASA. Rolling Stone dubbed the series, "The guiding light in New York's avant-rock scene." Presently, Nichols maintains a parallel career as a freelance writer and lives with her 14-year-old son in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

WILLIE WILLIAMS, Lighting Designer
Willie Williams works with light and visual media to create performance environments and installations. His live shows have been highly regarded as being both conceptually and technologically groundbreaking, collaborating with a spectrum of artists including R.E.M., U2, The Rolling Stones, Kronos Quartet and dance company La La La Human Steps. Other works have included installations at London's South Bank Centre, at Canterbury Cathedral and a permanent exhibit at Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum.

GUEST VOCALIST AND MUSICIAN BIOGRAPHIES:

ANJANI, Vocals (www.anjani-music.com)
"Anjani has always been known as a great singer, a musician's singer," says Leonard Cohen, the musical/literary legend who co-wrote and produced Angani's recently released CD Blue Alert . "She's known for this impeccable sense of tone and the ability to stack vocals one on top of the other, but this voice that she was showing here was a completely different voice that had moved somehow from the throat to the heart." Released in Spring 2006, Blue Alert is Anjani's major label debut. Blue Alert is an intoxicating marriage of Cohen's lyrics with Anjani's musical compositions. Her smoldering vocals and haunting piano stylings envelope the listener into the masterful web that these two artists create together. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Anjani trained in guitar, piano, and voice before attending Berklee College of Music. Anjani went on to play the jazz club circuit in Manhattan, where she was introduced to Leonard Cohen in 1984 by producer John Lissauer. Her haunting background vocals are heard on Cohen's original recording of his signature opus, "Hallelujah." Anjani joined Cohen's Various Positions World Tour as a keyboardist/vocalist, and she sang on Cohen's subsequent albums, I'm Your Man (1988), The Future (1992), and Dear Heather (2004).

LAURIE ANDERSON, Vocals (www.laurieanderson.com)
Laurie Anderson is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology. As one of the premier performance artists she has created a large body of work that spans the worlds of visual art, theater, and experimental music. Her recording career, launched by "O Superman," includes the soundtrack to her feature film Home of the Brave and Life on a String (2001). Anderson's live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as Songs and Stories for Moby Dick (1999). Anderson has published six books and her visual work has been presented in many major museums around the world. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA. Anderson was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Her current solo performance The End of the Moon has recently toured the U.S. and Europe.

ANTONY, Vocals (www.antonyandthejohnsons.com)
Antony first presented his songs after-hours at the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge in NYC. After receiving a fellowship for "performance art/emergent forms," Antony assembled the Johnsons and recorded his first album in 1998. He sang on Lou Reed's albums The Raven and Animal Serenade and toured with Lou internationally in 2003. Antony appeared as an androgynous convict singing to a crowd of inmates in Steve Buscemi's film Animal Factory. He also appeared recently singing "I Fell in Love to a Dead Boy" to a crowd of empathetic Parisian transsexuals in Wild Side. Antony and the Johnsons' first recordings were released by David Tibet on his label, Durtro. Antony's "The Lake" was included on Devendra Banhart's Bastet compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun. Antony and the Johnsons' last album I am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade) received international acclaim in 2005, winning the Mercury Prize in the UK. Antony and the Johnsons toured the world in 2005, playing everywhere from Queen Elizabeth Hall, La Carre, and Carnegie Hall to the orange groves of Sicily. His music was featured in recent films V for Vendetta and The Secret Life of Words. Antony is currently collaborating with Charles Atlas to stage "TURNING" this Autumn in London, Rome, and Paris. A concert and live video installation, "TURNING" features Antony and the Johnsons playing before a cast of 13 slowly revolving Beauties, whose images are simultaneously processed and projected onto a giant screen.

PERLA BATALLA, Vocals (www.perla.com)
Grammy nominated vocalist and composer Perla Batalla gained international attention performing and recording with various artists including Leonard Cohen, who encouraged Perla to embark on a solo career. Since then, Perla's six CD releases have become favorites throughout the U.S. and Canada. After leaving Warner-Discovery, Perla's first releases, Mestiza and Heaven and Earth on her own Mechuda Music label garnered Best Independent Release and Emerging Artists Awards from Amazon.com. The past five years have found Perla touring extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, performing in venues as diverse as UCLA's Royce Hall, The Getty, Joe's Pub and The Kennedy Center.

STEVEN BERNSTEIN, Trumpet and Musical Director (www.stevenbernstein.net)
(www.sexmobmusic.com)
Steven Bernstein is a trumpeter/slide trumpeter, bandleader, arranger, and composer who lives outside of musical convention. He has been collaborating with Hal Willner for over 10 years, on projects including Robert Altman's Kansas City, the Doc Pomus Project, and Lou Reed's The Raven. He has released three critically aclaimed cds - Diaspora Soul, Diaspora Blues, and Diaspora Hollywood. His band Sex Mob has been together 10 years touring the world , and has had their music featured on MTV, Saturday Night Live, and NPR. Their most recent cd, Sexotica, was recorded for Thirsty Ear's Blue series. His 9 piece ensemble, The Millennial Territory Orchestra, recently released their debut cd, MTO Vol. 1. He produced and arranged a children's CD, Baby Loves Jazz, on Verve records . During his 10 years in John Lurie's Lounge Lizards he arranged the music for Get Shorty, Clay Pigeons, Fishing With John, and many more film, television, and commercial projects with Mr. Lurie. As a composer he has scored the documentaries Keep the River On Your Right and Ballonhat, and dance pieces for Alvin Ailey, Body Vox, the Donald Byrd Dance Company, the Flying Karamazov Brothers, and the San Francisco Ballet. Bernstein has played trumpet with a diverse group of artists including Sam Rivers, Linda Ronstadt, Roswell Rudd, Marianne Faithfull, Digable Planets, Sting, Courtney Love, Levon Helm, Don Byron and Marvin Pontiac.

ROB BURGER, Keyboards (http://www.anndyer.com/artists_ind_rob.htm)
A New York native, Rob Burger received his formal education at the University of Massachusetts in improvisation and classical piano. Shortly thereafter he picked up the accordion, and launched his professional career when he landed a tour with Bill Frisell. He was a founding member of chamber group Tin Hat Trio, and has worked with such luminaries as John Zorn, Peruvian singer Susana Baca, Rufus Wainwright, Lucinda Williams, Iron & Wine, Calexico, and many others. He has contributed to the film scores of The Good Girl (2002) and Everything is Illuminated (2005), and has released a record of his own compositions entitled Lost Photograph for the Radical Jewish Culture series on the Tzadik label. He lives in Brooklyn.

CHARLIE BURNHAM, Strings
Mr. Burnham is a native New Yorker who received most of his training in the public school system. During his 30 plus years as a performing violinist he has toured world wide and recorded with such international stars as Casandra Wilson, Wynton Marsalis, James "Blood" Ulmer, Henry Treadgill and many more. Currently, Mr. Burnham is producing his much awaited debut CD which will be available to the public in the late fall of 2006.

NICK CAVE, Vocals (http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com)
After the break up of his band The Birthday Party in 1982, Nick Cave formed Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds who released their debut album From Here To Eternity in 1984. The band hs gone on to release nine further studio albums and are one of the most critically acclaimed acts working today. Nick Cave has worked across the creative arts; his output includes duets with Kylie Minogue, Shane MacGowan, Chris Bailey and PJ Harvey. He has written music for films and plays, written a novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel, and King Ink, a collection of lyrics and plays. In addition, Nick Cave composed music for, co-wrote and acted in the film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead as well as starred in the 1991 film, Johnny Suede with Brad Pitt. Nick Cave's influence is wide, artists as legendary and as diverse as Johnny Cash and Metallica have covered his songs. Recently, Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and soundtrack for The Proposition directed by John Hillcoat starring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, David Wenham and Emily Watson, which was released in 2006 to wide critical acclaim. Currently in the studio, Cave plans a Solo band tour in the autumn.

JULIE CHRISTENSEN, Vocals (http://www.stupidcupid.com)
Chanteuse Julie Christensen has honed her chameleon craft. In hundreds of shows, she has sung "Joan of Arc" to Leonard Cohen's flame. She's also sung with Steve Wynn, John Doe, Exene Cervenka, and Van Dyke Parks. With Chris D., she headed up post-punk rockers Divine Horsemen. Others utilizing Julie's kaleidoscope talents have been as far-flung as Iggy Pop, PiL, Robben Ford, and k.d. lang. Her two acclaimed independent Stone Cupid albums are a soulful hybrid of jazz and folk. Two new ones are near completion. One is Where the Fireworks Are-- the poetry of emotion and politics stirred up together. The other is Something Familiar, a collection of standards, ballads, and blues. Contributors include drummer Kenny Wollesen and bassist Don Falzone, also part of Came So Far for Beauty.

JARVIS COCKER, Vocals
Jarvis Cocker formed the band Arabacus Pulp (thankfully soon just Pulp) in the back of an economics class in the early 80s. Based in his native Sheffield, the band released a string of darkly intriguing independent singles to large scale indifference for much of the rest of the decade, with singer Cocker latterly taking time off to attend London's fabled St Martin's art school and hone his aesthetic. In the early 90s the band found their feet with gloriously thematic live performances based on the idea that in the future everyone would wear bacofoil and live in space. Around this they wove an increasingly impressive cache of songs, largely concerned with Cocker's love-life or, more often, woeful lack thereof.

These soon formed the basis of an increasingly successful string of single releases, culminating in the career-defining "Common People", which also gave Pulp the biggest album success of their career with Different Class. Cocker became a true national icon, beloved for his idiosyncratic performance style and dry unstarry manner. And then he invaded Michael Jackson's stage...

Pulp released two further albums and Cocker's diversified, directing videos for Aphex Twin and making and presenting the celebrated documentary Outsider Art. In 2002 he married Camille Bidault Waddington with whom he has a little boy named Albert. He sometimes likes to wear horror make-up and have people call him "Darren", in which guise he most recently made an album under the name "Relaxed Muscle".

ZOË CONWAY, violin(http://www.zoeconway.com)
Irish fiddler, Zoë Conway, is a prodigious talent, equally at home in both traditional and classical styles. She has toured worldwide, playing as guest soloist with world renowned orchestras and has appeared in concert halls including The National Concert Hall, Dublin, The Kremlin, Russia and Carnegie Hall, New York. She has performed with international acts such as Damien Rice, Rodrigo y Gabriella and Riverdance and is releasing her second solo album and live DVD later this year.

DAVID COULTER, Musical Saw
David Coulter is a musician/composer based in Brixton, London. Over the last twenty years his numerous live and studio collaborations as a multi-instrumentalist have included work with The Pogues, Kronos Quartet, Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawnhey, Charlemagne Palestine, Test Dept, Vivian Stanshall, Joe Strummer, Roger Eno, Steve Nieve, Marc Ribot, Sarah-Jane Morris, John Harle, Michael Gira, Lydia Lunch, Marianne Faithfull, Jean-Jacques Palix and 48 Cameras. He is also an accomplished player on the didgeridoo. David toured Japan in 2003 and 2004 with Richard Strange as The Doctors of Madness, performed recently at the Barbican, London with The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and played musical saw in Hal Willner's Nino Rota/Fellini tribute concert also at the Barbican. Since early 2004, he has been working as Tom Waits'/Robert Wilson's Associate Music Director for The Black Rider.

DON FALZONE, Bass
Don Falzone grew up in Los Angeles and has been living and playing in New York City for the past ten years. He has performed and/or recorded with a host of diverse artists such as David Lindley, Ry Cooder, Tom Waits, Jewel, Marianne Faithfull, and David Lynch among others.

GAVIN FRIDAY, Vocals
(www.gavinfriday.com)
Gavin Friday was born in Dublin, October 1959. Ireland's most avant-garde chanteur founded the legendary Virgin Prunes in 1977. Since 1987 he has composed and performed with pianist Maurice Seezer. Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves (1989), their compelling moody debut produced by Hal Willner, explores the world of Brel Piaf, Brecht and Weill with a healthy punk ethos. The follow up, 1992's Adam 'N' Eve is an eclectic work by an artist who refuses to be pigeonholed. In 1995, Gavin Friday releases the classic Shag Tobacco, produced by Bomb the bass' Tim Simenon. In 2001, he creates ch Liebe Dich, a twisted seductive musical tribute to the German composer Kurt Weill. In 2003 he unleashes his surreal and personal one man show "I Didn't Come Up The Liffey In A Bubble".

Today Gavin Friday is a prolific vocalist, artist and composer, whose film scores/soundtrack work includes In the Name of the Father, Short Cuts, The Boxer, Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Disco Pigs, and In America. Late 2005, Friday and Seezer team up with legendary producer Quincy Jones to score the Jim Sheridan directed 50 Cent biopic Get Rich or Die Trying. Acclaimed director Neil Jordan casts Gavin in the 2005 movie Breakfast on Pluto. Summer 2006 saw Gavin return to the stage in his "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" Extravaganza, as well as once again collaborating with producer Hal Willner on the boisterous collection of sea songs and chanteys, entitled Rogues Galler. Gavin is currently working on an album of original material.

THE HANDSOME FAMILY, Vocals (www.handsomefamily.com)
Brett and Rennie Sparks (The Handsome Family) have been married for 18 years. Uncut Magazine called their seventh CD, Last Days of Wonder (May 2006), an "Unqualified triumph." They were featured in the movie, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus and in late 2005, the venerable Irish singer Christy Moore covered two Handsome Family songs on his CD, Burning Times. A 2004 reader's poll in Mojo named The Handsome Family's third CD, Through the Trees, one of the ten essential Americana records. They live in Albuquerque, New Mexico and spend their free time training crows to steal shiny objects.