JANEL AND ANTHONY have captivated live audiences around the world with their music, a strikingly original and breathtakingly beautiful blend that defies genre and simple classification. Sophisticated, yet accessible, their music blends styles and sounds with an elegant experimentalism that has created fans among vastly different genres, including indie rock, electronic and experimental music, jazz, classical music, and ambient music alike. When Cuneiform Records released Where is Home, the duo’s second album, in 2012, the album was simultaneously embraced and acclaimed by several distinctly different audiences.  Where is Home received the 2012 WAMMIE (Washington Area Music Association) Award for Best Modern Rock Recording; a 4 star-review in the esteemed jazz publication DownBeat; a 4-star review on the BBC Music Magazine’s classicalmusic.com; and a feature broadcast with in-studio performance on Echoes, a syndicated radio show devoted to ambient and new age music.

Janel and Anthony is the collaborative venture of two of the fastest rising stars in DC's burgeoning experimental music scene: Anthony Pirog, an NYU trained guitarist whose influences range from surf to experimentalism, and Janel Leppin, a conservatory trained cellist steeped in North Indian and Persian classical music, free improvisation, experimentalism and jazz. Both accomplished musicians with active careers, they have released two albums as a duo, 2006's Janel and Anthony (Cricket Cemetery Records) and 2012's Where is Home (Cuneiform Records), and played countless shows across the DC metro area (often presented by Sonic Circuits) and the US. Locally, they’ve performed at Pyramid Atlantic, Strathmore Hall, the Goethe Institute, Iota, the Black Cat, and many other venues. In April 2013, Jane & Anthony performed on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, attracting a standing-room-only audience that packed the Kennedy Center’s hall.  

SONIC CIRCUITS, headquartered in downtown Silver Spring, is a Washington, DC area presenter for experimental music. Its goal is to expose audiences to cutting edge contemporary music that defies genres, and offer artists new platforms to present their music and opportunities to network and collaborate with artists from around the world. Since 2001, Sonic Circuits has organized an annual festival that brings world-class avant-garde musicians like Fennesz, Richard Pinhas & Merzbow, Magma and Faust to DC, spotlights the local music scene, and attracts local, national and international audiences. The Sonic Circuits Festival has been held in a wide range of venue, including the Atlas Center for Performing Arts (2013, 2012), the French Embassy (2010), Warehouse Next Door (2009) and many more. As part of its 2011 Festival, Sonic Circuits presented a free outdoor performance of Terry Riley’s “In C” by a 22-piece ensemble (including Janel Leppin on cello), conducted by Anthony Pirog, at Silver Spring’s Civic Center/Veterans Plaza. In addition to the festival, Sonic Circuits programs a year-round series of experimental music concerts at Pyramid Atlantic in downtown Silver Spring. Sonic Circuits is presented in part by Improv Arts Inc., a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to supporting the artistic and career development of artists and creating new markets for contemporary music. For more information, please see: http://dc-soniccircuits.org/

CUNEIFORM RECORDS, one of the most longstanding and widely respected record labels in the international avant-garde music scene, has been based in downtown Silver Spring since its founding in 1984.  It specializes in cutting-edge music that challenges, redefines and/or transcends genres, including rock (avant-progressive, experimental, R.I.O., chamber rock), jazz, electronic, classical, ambient/world and much more.  Over 30 years, it has released, distributed and internationally promoted at least 370 recordings by many of the world’s best avant-garde artists. Besides Janel & Anthony, Cuneiform's roster includes such fast-rising stars as John Hollenbeck's The Claudia Quintet, Rob Mazurek's Sao Paulo Underground, Steve Moore, and The Ahleuchatistas, in addition to such long-established avant-garde icons as Wadada Leo Smith, Soft Machine, Richard Pinhas/Heldon, Univers Zero, David Borden/Mother Mallard Portable Masterpiece Co., Robert Wyatt and more. Cuneiform releases frequently appear in music critic’s Best of Year lists. In recent years, Cuneiform itself has placed in the top 10 contemporary jazz/Creative Music labels worldwide in several international critics polls (New York City Jazz Record/USA; El Intruso International Critics Poll-Argentina (ranked at #2; above ECM at #3!); Musica Jazz-Italy, DownBeat-USA). In 2013, one of Cuneiform’s releases, Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers, a monumental musical tribute to the Civil Rights movement, was named one of the three official finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, the most prestigious award in American music.  For more information on Cuneiform, see: http://www.cuneiformrecords.com

BIOWALL PLAZA is a radically unique, multi-dimensional public space that integrates cutting-edge architecture and landscape design, nature and technology, and art/vision with music/sound. It is part of an architecturally striking complex of buildings being built in downtown Silver Spring by United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focusing on the development and commercialization of unique products to address the unmet needs of patients with chronic and life-threatening conditions. Designed by Schick Goldstein Architects, the United Therapeutics complex won a 2010 LEED Gold Award for Excellence in new Building Design and Construction from the US Green Building Council. Located on Cameron Street between Spring and Fenton, one block north of Colesville Road, BioWall Plaza fronts the complex’s main entrance. Designed by landscape architect Oehme van Sweden & Associates, who also designed the World War II Memorial in Washington in DC and various projects at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, the New York Botanical Garden, and elsewhere, BioWall Plaza is a circular, stone-paved outdoor space featuring a fountain, native plantings, and sculptural seating (some illuminated internally with shifting colors) that face a 16”x 9” video screen displaying nature scenes. Ambient music emerges from hidden sound sources on the plaza and along nearby sidewalks. A unique urban space that feels at once open and intimate, organic and carefully composed, BioWall Plaza is an ideal setting to hear Janel and Anthony perform their music, music at once global and intimate. For more information on BioWall Plaza and Oehme, van Sweden’s other landscape projects, see: http://ovsla.com/portfolio/commercial-portfolio/united-therapeutics/