Artistic Director of the TIME:SPANS festival Thomas Fichter is also the Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust’s (EBMF) Director and Executive Director (“Intendant”) of the Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, Germany. As Director of EBMF, Thomas established the basis for research of Earle Brown’s life and work by organizing an online searchable inventory of the Earle Brown archive. Thomas also oversaw the digitization and re-issue of the legendary Contemporary Sound Series recordings originally produced by Brown. Before moving to the U.S., Thomas was Executive Director of the “Ensemble Musikfabrik” in Cologne, Germany. Under his direction the group established a fully-funded concert series of contemporary music at the West German Radio in 2003, “Musikfabrik at WDR.”

Critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music. Jones has been awarded the Van Lier Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Commission, Jerome Artist-in-Residence at Roulette, French-American Jazz Exchange Award, and, in 2019, the Fromm Music Foundation commission at Harvard University. Jones has released a string of diverse recordings featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism. His work as a new music composer for voice culminated in a major debut performance at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Jones’ music is a confrontation against apathy and ego, hoping to inspire authenticity that compels us to be better humans.

Artistic and community organizer and dancer Patricia Nicholson Parker is steeped in the aesthetic of free jazz with an attention to spiritual and social responsibility. In 1981, she choreographed and organized “A Thousand Cranes Peace Opera,” with 1,000 children performing in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza for the opening of the Special Sessions on Disarmament; in the mid- and late-1980s, she responded to a lack of visibility for free jazz by helping to organize the Sound Unity Festivals. In 1996, she founded Arts for Art (AFA) and the Vision Festival to promote and advocate for free jazz, raising awareness through this notable and uncommonly visible platform. Since then, AFA has grown to be a movement that supports hundreds of artists annually working with the free jazz aesthetic.