Percussionist Seijiro Murayama was born in 1957 in Nagasaki, Japan. He started performing improvised music in 1972, under some influence of Vinko Globokar and musicologist Fumio Koizumi. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1982 with a degree in urdu studies, then toured the USA with Keiji Haino as part of the seminal psychedelic band Fushitsusha. He stayed in New York for several months before returning to Japan to teach mathematics until 1998. He continued playing drums and electronics in K.K. Null‘s noise/rock band A.N.P. (Absolut Null Punkt), while further exploring free improvisation with regular collaborators Jean-Luc Guionnet, Eric Cordier, Michel Doneda, Mattin, Lionel Marchetti, among many others. Murayama now lives and works in France.
He collaborated with some contemporary dance/theater/performance groups as a composer-musician.
His artistic principal is especially to work with the idea of the plural or inter disciplinarity between music and other disciplines of art: dance, video, paintings, photos, literature etc. In the same way, he collaborates with musicians, composers, and sound artists. Improvisation is always for him the major concern, even if it is not his artistic goal. His approach is based on the attention to space and place, to the energy of the audience, to the quality of silence in various levels. Otherwise, he develops, by means of texts, his reflections about the framework of the " concert " system, the relationship with the audience, etc.
Leo Bettinelli began his musical studies at the 'Musical Composition with Electro-acoustic Media' course at Quilmes National University. During this time he became involved with audiovisual media mainly through the theatre and then working on different multimedia projects, such as shorts, installations, dance, advertising, etc.
In parallel, Bettinelli developed his activity as a sound technician, whether it be live, in the studio, carrying out jobs involving music production, recording, mixing and sound post production. At present, he is also a performer / improviser / composer in the field of experimental, contemporary and electro-acoustic music, as well as in several popular music projects where he incorporates elements of the aforementioned currents.
Besides, since several years he works actively in the difussion of experimental music and free improvisation, organizing different music cycles in Argentina and Europe. Nowadays he directs the european branch of Niños Consentidos.
