Adam Summerhayes - Violin

Adam Summerhayes is an internationally acclaimed soloist and chamber musician and a compulsive composer. He has toured widely in Eastern Europe and spent a great deal of time in smoky cellar bars after concerts listening to (and playing alongside) gypsy musicians.

In his spare time, when not writing music for ZUM, Adam spends the majority of his time driving - breaking his journeys to perform with Zum, his duo and trio, to direct London Concertante (one of the UK's busiest chamber orchestras), or to give concerto performances.

When not performing or writing, Adam has recently found himself worked with teams from York Museum to recover an Opthalmosaur and filming whales and dolphins in the Sea of Cortez for a film company. His current ambition is to live on a south-facing hillside with a large enough glasshouse to grow his own apricots.

David Gordon - Piano

David Gordon has degrees in mathematics and logic, but retains enough sense of humour to perform and compose music. Jazz piano has taken him from Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London to the Red Sea Jazz Festival and the Copenhagen Jazzhouse, with any number of smoky dives on the way. He plays at international jazz festivals and on four critically acclaimed CDs with the Theo Travis Band. He tours, and has made recordings, with a trio of his own as well as with the Christian Garrick quartet and has recently started working in a duo with jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth.

As harpsichordist, he has toured Australia, South America and Europe as recitalist and orchestral continuo player. He plays with baroque violinist superstar Andrew Manze and was the musical director on a recording project of 17th century English dances with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and he has recently become harpsichordist with English Concert. And as composer he has had a number of works broadcast on Radio 3, and won a competition with his The Alchemist and the Catflap. He manages to combine his interests in his innovative cross-over band Respectable Groove with whom he will be touring Switzerland in 2003, but above all would like to become a world expert on Ceylon tea, and to run his own tea-importing business. Where's the logic in that?

Chris Grist - Cello

Chris' busy career as a cellist, specializing in chamber music, has taken him throughout the UK, to Europe and to the Americas. Miraculously, despite giving over 80 concerts a year, he still finds time to run his own orchestra and associated chamber groups, as well as dabbling in graphic design and photography, climbing mountains and teaching people to ski down them.

Above all, though, he is a powerhouse of ideas and crazy projects - of which ZUM is one of the most exciting. Perhaps his finest talent is ignoring anything that gets in the way of bringing one of his plans to fruition: at the first meeting to discuss the idea for ZUM, Chris was late, Adam didn't show up and Dave said that he didn't think that he would have time to write the music.
Remarkably, Chris managed to take all this as a positive sign that the idea would be a sure-fire hit.

Eddie Hession - Accordion

Despite being one of europe's master accordionists, Eddie spent the first year with ZUM insisting that he had nothing to put on his biography. However, painstaking research and intense interrogation has revealed that he has played on films that include Lord of the Rings, Chocolat, Mickey Blue Eyes, Evita, Shrek, Chicken Run, Gosford Park, Shipping News and Captain Corelli's Mandolin (where he even makes a screen appearance), although he considers the highlight of his career to be the recording of the theme tune for Captain Pugwash!

He has also worked with an endless list of stars from the Three Tenors to Westlife, including The Corrs, Chris Rea, Ronan Keating, George Martin, Ute Lemper, Andrea Bocelli, Bill Wyman, Lesley Garret and Russell Watson to name but a few.

As well as performing with all of the country's finest orchestras (including the LSO, LPO, RPO, Philharmonia, CBSO, BBC Concert Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, ENO), he acts as the Fat Controller on his son Patrick's railway and can often be seen running around his local park, in a vain attempt to tire out his border collie.

Jani Pensola - Bass

The latest addition to the quintet Jani Pensola, also known as the “Funky Finn“, is equally at home in the fields of classical, jazz and tango. The double bass has taken Jani to all four corners of the world, finally ending up here in London where Jani came to visit friends three years ago and forgot to leave (which is good for ZUM!). Jani has already achieved a prodigious reputation playing with the LSO and other London based orchestras as well as delving deeper into the mysteries of solo double bass, contemporary and chamber music.

As soon as Jani first played with ZUM, the combination of the band’s slightly off-the-wall musical approach and Jani just simply being Finnish (let’s face it, they’re an off-the-wall nation) made it obvious this was a match made in heaven. As a Finn, Jani is blissfully ignorant in the matters of tea and apricots and has even ditched his skis since moving to London, but is passionate about food and drink. When not with his double bass, Jani can be found exploring the South London curry houses in search of the ultimate dinner and has been sufficiently anglicised to enjoy a good pint of bitter now and again.