ROBERTO CATALANO, Ph.D.: guitar, chitarra battente, mandocello, mandola, mandolin, bouzouki, jaw's harp, benas, putipù, frame drum, percussion, vocals.

Roberto Catalano was born in Catania, Sicily, where he began his music career as a self-taught guitarist in 1973. He is a scholar, a teacher, a composer, and a multi-instrumentalist. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA and his main interests include Mediterranean music cultures with specific attention to the musical interaction between southern Italy, North Africa, and the Near East. Popular music, jazz, and musical instruments are also major interests of his. As a guitarist he has performed with different ensembles in major cities such as Catania, Rome, London, Vancouver, Seattle, and Los Angeles. He has opened shows for major jazz artists such as guitarist Jim Hall and pianist Michel Petrucciani and played with accomplished jazz artists such as guitarist John Scofield. As an arranger he has written scores in several contemporary styles, the most notable among these being a piece taken from the Sardinian vocal tradition known as "canto a tenores," which he arranged for the four strings of Grammy Award winner, Kronos Quartet. Roberto Catalano is a collector and maker of musical instruments, his collection amounting to about one hundred eighty pieces from all over the world.

ENZO FINA, M.F.A.: frame drums, fina, guitar, mandolin, percussion, putipù, jaw's harp, harmonica, flutes, vocals.

Enzo Fina was born in Salice Salentino, Lecce, Italy. He holds a M.A. degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce. Since his beginning as a musician, one of his main fascinations has been the acoustic nature of sound. Such interest has brought him to develop an interdisciplinary approach to art embracing the relationships between music and visual arts. Fina extended his studies on the acoustic properties of sound in instrument making by synthesizing his findings in the creation of his own musical instrument. In fact, in 1983, after studying the structure of an African mbira (thumb piano), he created a personal version of that instrument calling it most simply, fina. In addition, Fina has been trained also in various arts such as dance, mime, construction and use of masks, and puppeteering. He has worked with music and theater ensembles of diverse kinds and different goals ranging from traditional music research to film scoring; from street theater to puppet shows to anthropological theater in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Morocco, Canada and the United States. He has worked as music therapist in residence at the (CHLA) Children's Hospital of Los Angeles as well as at other specialized institutions. Currently, he works as art and music therapist for troubled adolescents at PennyLane Child Care Center in Los Angeles, and as music instructor in the program "Science of Sound" with the Pasadena POPS Orchestra and Simphony Association's education program.