Pianist Frank Harrison was born in Oxford in 1978. He took up the piano at 11, and began playing gigs when he was 15. In 1994 he won the soloist award in the Daily Telegraph Young Jazz Competition, and in 1996 came second in the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year Competition. After taking up a scholarship at Berklee School of Music in Boston, he returned to England and joined Gilad Atzmon's band. In 2000 they started the Orient House Ensemble, with whom Frank has recorded four albums on Enja Records, including Exile, BBC Jazz Album of the Year 2003. The band regularly tours Europe, playing at major jazz and world music festivals. Frank has also performed with Julian Siegel, Don Weller, Alan Barnes, John Etheridge and Iain Ballamy.

   

Drummer Stephen Keogh was born in Ireland.  He followed his studies there with private lessons in London and New York. He played as percussionist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, contemporary music ensembles and many visiting jazz artists including Sonny Fortune, Eddie Locklaw Davis, Jimmy Witherspoon, Pat La Barbera, Louis Stewart, and James Moody. A move to London in 1988 led to tours and recordings with many British and American jazz artists including Stan Tracey, Charles McPherson, Art Farmer, Jason Rebello, Jean Toussaint and Benny Carter. Since moving to Barcelona in 1990, Stephen has worked all over the world with many great musicians including Johnny Griffin, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Harrold Land, Peter King, Brad Mehldau, Mark Turner, Herb Ellis, Benny Golson and Steve Grossman. He is a member of the European Jazz Piano Trio led by Bill Charlap and of the Peter King Quartet, and co-leads the Urban Jazz Quintet and Urban Jazz Ensemble.

  

Bassist Dave Whittford moved to London in 1993 to study music at Middlesex University and the Guildhall School of Music. Since graduating he has been steadily establishing himself as one of the most in-demand young double bass players on the London scene. He has toured extensively in the U.K and Europe playing at many international festivals including Breacon, Shanghai and London. Dave has worked with a wide variety of artists including Stan Sulzmann, John Taylor, Bobby Wellins, Marc Copland, Henry Lowther, Jim Mullen, Phil Robson, Chris Biscoe, Martin Speake, Anita Wardell and  Hans Koller, with whom he has recorded several CDs most recently featuring the late soprano saxophone legend Steve Lacy. He is also a regular member of Christine Tobin’s band with whom he has recorded and appeared regularly at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. Other projects include a trio with Liam Noble playing the music of Dave Brubeck, and Nick Smart’s Black Eyed Dog a band that reinterprets the music of Nick Drake.

   

Welsh poet Richard Douglas Pennant came to Cyprus in the 1970s as a charity worker and settled in Limassol. Although he has written poetry since adolescence, he has applied a systematic and mature approach to his creative passion only recently. Always inspired by the rugged Welsh landscape and particularly the tales and legends of the Celtic deities, Cyprus has offered inspiration from the Hellenic world, the richness of the myths and the civilization of ancient Greece. Human relationships, the power of love and friendship, and the beauty of the ordinary experiences of life, all play a part in his writing. Since publishing his first collection of poems, Old Stones New Tales in 2004, he has been engaged in performances with musicians ranging from the Allegri and Danel String Quartets to traditional musicians such as Ross Daly and Abdullah Chhadeh, touring festivals, art centres and music clubs in the UK, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands.