Circular Dreaming is the brainchild of pianist/filmmaker Valerie Mih. Bringing together her two artistic loves - music and animation - she crafts a magical sensory journey for the audience. The concepts of breath, release and flow are central to her work, which melds jazz, classical, minimalist and experimental approaches.

Valerie began studying classical piano at the age of 6 and jazz piano at age 15. As a teenager, she participated in national piano competitions and performed the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Washington Idaho Symphony. She received a B.A. in American Studies from Stanford University, where she helped to institutionalize Asian American Studies and co-founded the Stanford Taiko Group with Ann Ishimaru (founder of Portland Taiko). She then discovered the field of animation, and immersed herself in learning the art and craft of moving visuals. She pursued an M.F.A. in Film, Video and Computer Animation from the University of Southern California, completing a student film (Pets) which received a student Emmy. Her professional animation and media works have been recognized with awards, distribution contracts and festival screenings, including the Festival of Cinema and Technology's Best Animation Award (for Einstein), Independent Television Service production funding (for PBS interstitials Paper Peace and Harmonize), a CINE Eagle Award (for The Pets Zone) and a Silicon Valley Arts Fellowship (for Voices of Patriots). She mentors the next generation of animators at The Art Institute of California-San Francisco. At the same time, she continued to develop musically and found an ideal music mentor in trumpeter/composer Eddie Gale. As a member of Eddie Gale's group, she has performed at the Vision Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival, Sista's Place, the Zebulon Concert Cafe and the Bach Dynamite Society. Improvisation led naturally to the development of her own compositional voice, which she explores with fellow musicians and artists through Circular Dreaming. (Photo courtesy Carter Tomassi)

Marco Salsiccia started playing the piano when he was 6 and hasn't stopped playing since. He began playing by ear early in his piano career and started teaching himself songs, mostly using movie soundtracks and scores for training. After growing to love said soundtracks and scores, he began to develop a keen interest in the mixing of visuals and sound; the art of editing, musical juxtaposition, and the process of creating the visuals themselves. He began improvisation in high school, playing every day in the Little Theatre for his friends and teachers. Eventually, he was asked to play for a production of Taming of the Shrew, improvising vaudeville style piano through the entire two and-a-half hour performance. Apart from this, Marco helped to develop an Animation course for the students at the school, and played the keyboard for a jazzy rock band named "Brilliant Orange."

Marco attended the Art Institute of California - San Francisco and furthered his study into creating visuals and setting them to music, whether it was in film, coherent or abstract animation form. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Media Arts & Animation in September 2005 and currently works for Digital Anarchy, a plug-in developer, creating tools for digital artists to use for their work. Marco freelances as a motion graphics designer, compositor and an editor, and enjoys recording music in his spare time. He is absolutely thrilled about being given the opportunity of creating motion graphics and visuals for Valerie's music, hoping to further the integration of music and visuals and helping the audience to get a sense of what music actually looks like; allowing a broader scope of sensory perception to be appreciated when experiencing music.