Shirzad Sharif - Tonbak & Daf Shirzad was born to a highly acclaimed musical family in Iran and studied the Tonbak under the strict supervision of the renowned Ostad Bahman Rajabi. Since then he has adapted his own unique style of playing enabling him to play melodic rhythms on the Tonbak while accompanying various instruments which must be seen and heard to be fully appreciated. Shirzad is also the first Tonbak player to have researched & performed other Middle Eastern, Arabic & non-Persian rhythms on the Tonbak. Accompanying other Arabic and Indian drums he is thus the first percussionist to have connected and created a rhythmical triangle within the three ancient regions of Persia, India & the Middle East. He is also the founder of Som'ma and pioneer of avant-garde Persian music which uses Persian classical music modes and abstract avant-garde ideas!

Mahour Mellat Parast - Tar Mahour Mellat Parast was born in 1973 in Iran. He grew up in a music loving family, where his father was a musician, composer and a player of Tar, Setar, Piano and Turkish Tar. He started playing Tar at the age of 14, under the supervision of his father and in 1989, he was awarded the first rank Tar player in the Province of Gilan, Iran. Mahour also joined the Oshagh musical group at the age of 16, as their youngest player and took part in many concerts with that group throughout Iran. After his admission to Sharif University, he moved to Tahran.

Jeffery Stott - G3 Laptop & electronics  Producer, performer and composer, Jeffery Stott, has been deftly merging the worlds of modern electronic music production and Middle Eastern traditional musics for over a decade. He has studied rural and classical forms with master musicians from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. These teachers have led him to become accomplished on several traditional Middle Eastern instruments including oud, baglama, yali tambur, and santoor, as well as the full range of percussion instruments of the Middle East. Equally at home in the digital realm, Jeffery contributes much of the programming and production found on the LUMIN albums and live performances. In addition to releasing three full length critically acclaimed CD's Hadra, Datura, and Star of the Sea by STELLAMARA, he has produced international music remixes by Turkish and Persian artists for Universal Records and EMI Europe, as well as composed for film, modern dance and theatrical productions. He has performed at festivals and concerts in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Edinburgh, London, and Mexico. Currently at work on the third LUMIN album with MNO and Irina.

Stephan Junca - Drumset\Percussion Self-taught on the drum set, Stephan has been playing drums and percussion for over 20 years, in almost every style from rock, jazz, fusion and country to afro-Cuban, reggae and various world beat. Over the last 10 years he's seriously expanded his hand percussion repertoire, playing African, Middle Eastern and Cuban/Latin styles and rhythms on djembe, conga and bongo, dumbek and various frame drums, udu and a wide assortment of percussion items from many cultures.

Stephan also has extensive work with keyboard programming, writing and arrangement. He's been involved in a number of solo projects, including a nature recording soundtrack, meditation accompaniment tapes and psychoactive light and sound programs. His work has been featured on more than a dozen releases. Mark Deutsch - Bazantar Mark is a visionary artist with a background in non-linear mathematics, sacred systems and cosmology. As a classically trained bassist whilst studying sitar and North Indian classical music with the legendary Ustad Imrat Khan developed a breaking new instrument: The Bazantar - a five-string acoustic bass fitted with an additional twenty-nine sympathetic strings and four drone strings. The result is a remarkable instrument that weaves a mesmerizing soundscape of resonance, and evokes all the power of Western classical music with the depth and nuance of Eastern traditions.  Since the creation of the Bazantar, Mark has been performing extensively world wide, performing at the Juilliard School of Music and at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. On the collaborative side, his music has attracted an eclectic array of musicians, including the Grammy award-winning cellist David Darling; the seminal Chicago rock band Tortoise; virtuoso erhu player and principle soloist with the Beijing National Symphony Yang Ying; and jazz luminaries such as William Parker, Roy Campbell, and Hamid Drake.  For more information on Mark please visit: http://www.bazantar.com Jaron Lanier - World Instruments  Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. Currently, Lanier serves as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet 2. Lanier is probably best known for his work in Virtual Reality. He coined the term ‘Virtual Reality’ and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. As a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new "classical" music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Vernon Reid, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan. Current recording projects include his "acoustic techno" duet with Sean Lennon and an album of duets with flautist Robert Dick. He also writes chamber and orchestral music. Recent commissions include: A concert length sequence of works for orchestra and virtual worlds (including "Canons for Wroclaw", "Khaenoncerto", "The Egg", and others) celebrating the 1000th birthday of the city of Wroclaw, Poland, premiered in 2000; A triple concerto, "The Navigator Tree", commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum, premiered in 2000; and "Mirror/Storm", a symphony commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and premiered in 1998. “Continental Harmony”, a PBS special that documented the development and premiere of “The Navigator Tree” won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. His CD "Instruments of Change" was released on Point/Polygram in 1994 For more info on Jaron please visit: http://www.well.com/user/jaron/general.html