Edoardo Belloti is Organ and Improvisation Professor at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester University. He is an organist, harpsichordist and musicologist, known as a specialist in the keyboard repertoire of the Renaissance and Baroque, particularly for the improvisation. As a performer he has played in Europe, United States, Canada, Japan and Korea, while as a musicologist he has published several essays and critical editions of XVIIth and XVIIIth century music. He teaches seminars, courses and conferences at several musical institutions and universities worldwide. He is often asked as a jury member of international competitions. He is artistic director of the International Improvisation Academy in Smarano.

Niels Berentsen teaches improvised counterpoint at the Royal Conservatoire. He is a doctoral student at the Orpheus Institute, Ghent, and Leiden University, working on the reconstruction of fourteenth and fifteenth century non-written polyphonies. He studied composition and singing with Cornelis de Bondt and Barbara Pearson at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. Niels is a member of the Ascoli-Ensemble, dedicated to the performance of little-known Ars Nova music, and performs repertoires ranging from medieval to contemporary.

Michael Callahan is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Michigan State University, where he teaches courses in undergraduate harmony and form, modal and tonal counterpoint, keyboard skills, and music theory pedagogy.  His research interests include music theory pedagogy, particularly through music making, as well as eighteenth-century counterpoint and the Great American Songbook.  He is the recipient of a Lilly Teaching Fellowship and a Humanities and Arts Research Program grant, both in support of his development of a software-assisted approach to teaching music theory through performance.

Philippe Canguilhem is Professor of Musicology at the University of Toulouse (France). His work focuses on Italian music in the 16th century, with special emphasis on Florentine musical life. He his also interested in improvised counterpoint in the Renaissance: within the scope of the FABRICA research project which he has been directing from 2008 to 2012, he is about to publish an edition and translation of Vicente Lusitano’s counterpoint treatises. Besides articles in international journals, he has published two books, on Vincenzo Galilei (2001) and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli (2003). He is currently working on a monograph about music and culture in Florence during the principate of Cosimo I.

Thomas Christensen is the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities and Music at the University of Chicago, where he also serves as Associate Dean and Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division. His recent work has led him into questions of 19th-century historiographies of music and tonality, as well as print culture in pedagogies of Renaissance music theory. Fundamental to his work has been a desire to situate the many intellectual frames, arguments and linguistic models used by writers in the early modern period deeply within cultural discourses. Hence, as one example, Christensen’s 1993 monograph on Jean-Philippe Rameau attempted to analyze his music theory as a complex response to both the empirical as well as synthetic values of Enlightenment science. Some of his more recent work on the writings of the 17th-century savant, Marin Mersenne or the 19th-century Belgian scholar Joseph Fetis, have likewise sought to analyze their enigmatic writings in the light of coterminous intellectual currents and social frames. Christensen has also attempted more synthetic surveys of problems in music theory, particularly as editor of the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (published in 2003). His work has received support and recognition over the years from a variety of academic associations and funding agencies.

Giuseppe Fiorentino is Lecturer of “History of music” and “Didactics of music” at the Universidad de Cantabria (Santander, Spain). His musicological researches have been mainly centred on compositional and improvisational processes employed in Renaissance music, on the origin and evolution of harmonic frameworks during the 15th and 16th centuries, on links between oral and written traditions of music, and on musical relationships between Spain and Italy during the Renaissance and Baroque ages. Part of his research has been carried out as visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), at The Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti, Florence, Italy), at the Università degli Studi di Pisa (Pisa, Italy). The results of his researches have been presented in international congresses such as the Biennial Conference on Baroque Music (2002), Congress of the American Musicological Society (2009), Congresso della Società Italiana di Musicologia (2009 and 2011), Med & Ren Conference (2011), Congress of the International Musicological Society (2012), Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Musicología (2012). His study about the origin of the folía framework has been published in 2013 by Reichenberger Editions (Kassel, Germany).

Massimiliano Guido is a Banting Post Doctoral Fellow at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, where he works with Peter Schubert on a project about the art of memory at the keyboard as a tool for teaching counterpoint (2012-14). He is the principal investigator of the research project Improvisation in Classical Music Education: Rethinking our Future by Learning our Past, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2013-14). He holds degrees in musicology (Pavia Univ. Doctorate and Laurea, Göteborg Univ. Master of Music Research), organ (Parma Conservatory) and harpsichord (Como Conservatory). He combines musicological research with organ teaching and performance. From 2008 to 10, he served as a post-doc fellow at Musicology Department, Pavia University, focusing on music theory and historical performance practice of keyboard instruments. He has recently written about improvisation (Philomusicaonline and the OrganYearbook 2013), music theory, performance practice and organ building. In 2010 he organized the first interantional conference Con la mente e con le mani as a result of his postdoctoral research in Pavia. He mantains the website www.mentemani.org.

Jean-Yves Haymoz earned his degree in Music Theory at the Fribourg Conservatory of Music. In 1979, he was asked by the Early Music Center of Geneva, a division of the Haute École de Musique de Genève, to develop a curriculum in Early Music Theory. He also headed the Center for 10 years. He currently teaches music theory and research methodology there and in Lyon, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse. Jean-Yves’ primary interests are research, practice and teaching of both improvised counterpoint in the style of vocal polyphony and the performance of plainsong in the Renaissance and in the Baroque Era. He founded Alternatim, a plainsong ensemble, and co-founded Le Chant sur le Livre, the first ensemble worldwide dedicated to polyphonic improvisation in the styles of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Stefano Lorenzetti is professor of the History of music at Conservatory of music of Vicenza and at Kent State University. A native of Florence, he earned his Ph.D. in History and Civilization at the European University Institute. Lorenzetti is on the advisory board of Recercare, a journal for the study and practice of early music. His works include numerous journal articles and conference presentations on renaissance and baroque music.  He edited "Histories of Music in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy," Italian History and Culture, V (1999) and among his recent publications is the monograph. Musica e identità nobiliare nell’Italia del Rinascimento. Educazione, mentalità, immaginario.

Lorenzetti has concentrated his research activity on the history of education, on the history of ideas, and on the history of the italian oratorio. Actually, he has initiated to work on the relationship between music and the art of memory in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

As a musician he studied harpsichord at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. He is founder of the ensemble on original instruments, Musica Figurata. With this ensemble, he has recorded a dozen compact discs of Italian masters.

Felix Marangoni graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in “Performing Arts and Media Studies” (prof. D. Bryant) with a dissertation about Hans Leo Hassler’s keyboard music and graduated  afterwards cum laude with a master’s degree in “Musicology and musical heritage” (prof. G. Morelli) at Venice “Ca’ Foscari” University with a dissertation on the music of Luca Marenzio in the “Turin tablature” (the most significant Italian collection of keyboard music of the XVIIth century). His work was published in 2011 by «Il Levante» Editions, specialized in ancient keyboard music. He got his organ and haprsichord degrees cum laudee at Padua and Verona conervatories. He won different competitions with prestigious juries: the President’s medal from Senate of the Italian Republic in the “G. Giarda” competition (Rome, 2001); the third prize at the International “Johann Joseph Fux organ competition” (Austria 2002); the second prize (first prize not assigned) at the “International Dietrich Buxtehude Organ Competition” in Lübeck (Germany, 2007) the second prize (first prize not assigned) at the “International Organ Competition” in Herford (Germany, 2008) and was semifinalist at the competitions in Bruges (B) (2009) and “Silbermann” in Freiberg (D) (2009).

Jacques Meegens is an organist and musicologist, and teaches improvised counterpoint at the CESMD of Poitou-Charentes. His main areas of research are improvised counterpoint, early keyboard tablatures and their ornamentation.He studied at the Paris-Sorbonne University, where he graduated with highests honors with his research on 15th-century keyboard ornamentation. He also attended courses at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and at the Fondation Royaumont. As a musician, Jacques Meegens revives early repertoires and improvisation practices. He plays in historical improvisation concerts, and took part to presentations at the Musée National du Moyen-Âge and at Radio France.

Arnaldo Morelli is associate professor at L’Aquila University. He holds degrees in musicology (Università di Bologna, 1989) and in “Discipline delle arti della musica e dello spettacolo” (Università di Bologna, 1984). He served as history of music professor at Matera, Rovigo, L’Aquila, and Latina  Conservatories (1984-2004). He is the editor of «Recercare. Rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica».  He was a research associate at the Harvard University Center of Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti, Firenze (1997–2003). He published widely in international journals, such as “Analecta Musicologica”, “Basler Jahrbuch”, “Italian History and Culture”, “I Tatti Studies”, “Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music”, “Music in Art”, “Musica disciplina”, “Quaderni storici”, “Recercare”, “Rivista italiana di musicologia”, and “Studi musicali”.

Roberto Perata is a Ph.D. student in Musicology at the State University of Milan. He studied music at the Conservatory in Genova, graduating in Piano (1990), Organ (1995), Composition (1996), Chorus conducting (1993) and Orchestra Conducting (2004). He holds degrees in Law (Genova, 1993) and in Musicology (Venice, 2007). In 1996 he was hired at the Teatro La Scala as a repetitor (1996). He is active as a pianist, harpsichordist and organist, as a composer, and as a chorus and orchestra conductor. He leads at the same time an intense didactic activity, as a teacher of Harmony and Music Analysis in Italian Music Conservatories, as a vocal coach at the Accademia della Scala, as a coach and conductor at the International Institute of Vocal Arts of New York, and as a conductor of the orchestra of the Music School of Varese. Author of several music booklets for La Scala, his musicological activity is mainly focused on music analysis, on which subject he had his first book Analisi musicale - Un antimetodo printed in 2011 (Edizioni Armelin, Padua).

Marco Pollaci is a Ph.D student the University of Nottingham, in Music Theory, Analysis and Composition. He holds a degree in  "Liberal arts - Music and Performing Arts - Music" from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome with Giorgio Sanguinetti. He studied piano and singing at the "S. Cecilia" Conservatory in Rome.  His researh fields are partimento and opera.

William Porter was Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, from 2002 until 2013, and he continues to teach in the organ department at McGill University in Montreal. From 1985 to 2002 he taught organ, music history, and music theory at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and from 2001 until 2005 he taught improvisation at Yale University. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, where he also taught harpsichord and organ from 1974 to 1986, and from Yale University, where he was director of music at Yale Divinity School from 1971 to 1973. Widely known as a performer and teacher in the United States and in Europe, he has achieved international recognition for his skill in improvisation in a wide variety of styles, ancient and modern. He has taught and performed at major international festivals and academies, including the North German Organ Academy, the Italian Academy of Music for the Organ, the Smarano Organ and Clavichord Academy, Organfestival Holland, the Göteborg International Organ Academy, the Dollart Festival, the Lausanne Improvisation Festival, the Festival Toulouse les Orgues, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the McGill International Organ Academy, Eastman’s Improvfest, and the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. From 1985 to 1997 he was director of music at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Boston, and was Artist in Residence at Boston’s First Lutheran Church from 1999 until 2002. He is organ consultant for the Constellation Center, a new performing arts center to be built in the Boston area, which will house several organs in different styles. He has recorded on historic instruments, old and new, for the Gasparo, Proprius, BMG, and Loft labels.

Giorgio Sanguinetti is Associate Professor at the University of Rome-Tor Vergata. He regularly gives lectures, seminars and keynote speeches in several European and American institutions. In 2012 he has been visiting professor at the McGill University in Montreal (Canada) and in 2013 at the University of North Texas (Denton). He has written extensively on the history of Italian theory from 18th to 20th century, Schenkerian analysis, analysis and performance, form in 18th century music, and Opera analysis. As a pianist he performed as soloist and in chamber groups. His book The Art of Partimento. History, Theory and Practice is published by Oxford University Press (2012).

Peter Schubert is Associate Professor at the McGill University Faculty of Music. He is the author of a groundbreaking textbook, Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style (Oxford University Press, 1999). With colleague Christoph Neidhoefer he also co-authored Baroque Counterpoint (Prentice-Hall, 2005).
Peter Schubert studied conducting with Nadia Boulanger, Helmuth Rilling, Jacques-Louis Monod and David Gilbert and has been assistant to Gregg Smith and Agnes Grossman. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University.

Peter van Tour is a Ph.D. candidate at Uppsala University, Sweden. He did his master in musicology at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands where he studied with Jaap van Benthem, Willem Elders, among others. He holds a master in music pedagogy from the Conservatory of Brabant in Tilburg, the Netherlands and a master in Music Theory from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.Peter is co-founder of the Gotland School of Music Composition and has been teaching counterpoint, fugue and aural training there since then. Recently, he has also been teaching aural training at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. As a researcher he is a participant in the STINT music research network since 2012, together with musicologists from the Royal Holloway University of London and the University of Leipzig. His Ph.D. project deals with the relationship between counterpoint and partimento in Naples in the late 18th century.

Bor Zuljan is a Research Assistant at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève where he is working with Dusan Bogdanovic and Jean-Yves Haymoz on 16th Century fantasia improvisation on the lute.  As a musicologist he is working on the complete critical edition of the works of 16th Century Italian lutenist and composer Giacomo Gorzanis, which is going to be published by the Institute of Musicology of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He performs regularly in concert venues in Europe, Africa and Asia, as a soloist, member of different groups (Ensemble Contrechamps), andd in duo with the guitarist Dusan Bogdanovic. He is the artistic director of early music festival Dnevi stare glasbe in Slovenia.