Katy Bohinc is a poet, publisher, and data scientist. She is author of Dear Alain (Tender Buttons Press, 2014), Trinity Star Trinity (Scarlet Imprint, 2017), and Scorpio (Miami University Press, 2018). From 2013-2020 she collaborated on the esteemed Tender Buttons Press with Lee Ann Brown. Tender Buttons Press published several landmark poetry texts, from Bernadette Mayer’s Sonnets to Dodie Bellamy’s Cunt-Ups. A quarter of Tender Buttons Press authors have won Guggenheim Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Currently Katy is founder & CEO of THE RATIO, a company that studies astrology with data science. Most recently, Katy was first editor on De Kai’s RAISING AI (MIT Press, 2025), which was selected by JPMorgan as one of fourteen 2025 summer reading titles. LitHub said: “Fascinating and mercifully comprehensible to layreaders, Raising AI situates humans as the adults in the room and explores the ways in which we can and should engage with our “artificial children.” Why not give your dread a little break?”

Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short story writer and essayist. Her bestselling novels include Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, When We Lost Our Heads and Valentine in Montreal. She has won numerous prizes for her books, including Canada Reads, the Danuta Gleed Award and the Hugh Maclennan Prize. She has also been shortlisted for, among others, the Governor General Award, the Women’s Prize, and the Giller Prize. She has contributed to numerous publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Globe and Mail. Born and raised in Montreal, she lives there today.

Jonathan Yeoh is a homegrown born and raised double bassist from Calgary, and is also the Assistant Principal Double Bass of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. He has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Canadian Opera Company, while also being a previous fellow at the Music Academy of the West, winning the London Symphony Keston MAX Award in 2019.

He holds a Master’s of Music in Double Bass Performance from Boston University with Edwin Barker, and holds a Bachelor’s of Music with distinction in Performance from the University of Calgary with Charles Garrett, previous Principal Bass of the Calgary Phil. Yeoh has also worked closely with David Allen Moore, Paul Ellison, François Rabbath, and Ali Yazdanfar. When not playing the double bass, Yeoh is a voracious eater, and can often be found exercising and powerlifting to justify that habit.

Described by the New York Times as having “especially eloquent playing,” violinist Ken Hamao is a dynamic musician renowned for his sensitive interpretation, and has concertized extensively throughout the world in notable venues such as Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Melbourne Recital Centre, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, and Lincoln Center. 

As a member of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet, Ken is Professor of the Practice at Harvard University’s Department of Music. He has also held guest faculty positions at the New England Conservatory and Dartmouth College. Prior to joining the Parker Quartet, he was a member of the Ensō String Quartet from 2014 to 2018, with whom highlights include worldwide tours of Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and New Zealand. As a soloist, he has performed concertos by Giya Kancheli, Kurt Rohde, and Tan Dun, the latter of which with the composer at the podium. He also appears frequently with Argento Chamber Ensemble, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Talea Ensemble.

In addition to music, Ken’s passions include attempting to make a bowl of ramen entirely from scratch, cheering on his beloved Tottenham Hotspur while attending various live football matches around the world, and amateur woodworking.
 

Ayoun Kim was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians

Cellist Ayoun Alexandra Kim, a prize-winning performer from Korea, has been recognized by the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition and has performed at leading festivals including Music@Menlo and Kneisel Hall. She has collaborated with the Telegraph Quartet and artists such as Shai Wosner and Inon Barnatan. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School and SFCM. Her primary mentors are Natasha Brofsky, Astrid Schween, Hans Jensen, and Jennifer Culp.

claire fleming staples is a queer interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago, IL, where they teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and are co-founder of the artist-run gallery, ALMANAC. They are a long-term member of a mycelial network of underground creative communities in the United States, in which care and organizing are an important part of their practice. They regularly perform in Chicago at venues such as Co-Prosperity, The Empty Bottle, No Nation, Comfort Station, and Elastic Arts and have traveled to share work at the Raclin Museum of Art at Notre Dame University, the Museo de la Ciudad in Querétaro, México, and PS1 Iowa City. They have screened work at The Chicago Underground Film Festival, Artists Television Access and Open Signal: Video Art in Flux, and shown virtual worlds in The Wrong Biennale and the Memory Card New Art City Festival. Collaboration is an integral part of their community-grounded practice, and they have had the honor of working with artists such as Brendan Fernandes, Hunter Whittaker Morrow, Ále Campos, Odette Stout, Zekarias Musele Thompson, Hai Wen Lin, Suspended Culture, and Kyriakos Apostolodis. 

Jonathan Lee was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians

Pianist Jon Lee is a first-prize laureate at the Cliburn International Amateur and San Diego International Piano Competitions, and has performed widely across North America and Europe at venues including Symphony Hall in Boston and Salle Cortot in Paris. Active as both a chamber musician and arts leader, he collaborates with artists including Clive Greensmith, the Telegraph Quartet, Nicholas Phan, and Jonathan Vinocour, and serves in leadership roles with the Hawaiʻi Chamber Music Festival and SF Chamber Sessions. He also developed MusicPodium, an iPad app for digital score reading, and holds degrees from MIT and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
 

Brendan Fernandes is a Canadian artist based in Chicago. His interdisciplinary practice brings together dance and visual art to explore race, queer culture, migration, protest, and collective movement. Often taking hybrid forms that merge ballet, social dance, and political action, his work creates spaces for participation, solidarity, and belonging. 

Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and has received numerous honors, including the Platform Award (2024), Creative Voice Award from Arts Alliance Illinois (2024), Artadia Award (2019), and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020). His work has been presented internationally at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the National Gallery of Canada. Fernandes is Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University and is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, and Susan Inglett Gallery, New York.

Shintaro Taneda was generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians

Violinist Shintaro Taneda is active both as a chamber and orchestral musician. Along with being violinist in the Ethea Trio, he has recently collaborated with acclaimed artists including Kim Kashkashian, Parker Quartet, Inon Barnatan, and Shai Wosner. Shintaro is also a member of the Oregon Symphony, and a violin coach with the Portland Youth Philharmonic.