"Harold Winston "Harry" Beckett (30 May 1935 - 22 July 2010) was a British trumpeter and flugelhorn player of Barbadian origin.

Born in Bridgetown, Saint Michael, Barbados, Harry Beckett learned to play music in a Salvation Army band. A resident in the UK since 1954, he had an international reputation. In 1961, he played with Charles Mingus in the film All Night Long. In the 1960s he worked and recorded within the band of bass player and composer Graham Collier. Beginning in 1970, he led groups of his own, recording for Philips, RCA and Ogun Records among other labels.

He was a key figure of important groups in the British free jazz/improvised music scene, including Ian Carr's Nucleus, the Brotherhood of Breath and The Dedication Orchestra, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, London Improvisers Orchestra, John Surman's Octet, Django Bates, Ronnie Scott's Quintet, Kathy Stobart, Charlie Watts, Stan Tracey's Big Band and Octet; Elton Dean's Ninesense. He has also recorded with Keef Hartley, Jah Wobble, David Sylvian and worked with David Murray. He toured abroad with Johnny Dyani, Chris McGregor, Keith Tippett, John Tchicai, Joachim Kühn, Dudu Pukwana's Zila, George Gruntz's Bands, Belgian quintet The Wrong Object, Pierre Dørge's New Jungle Band and Annie Whitehead's Robert Wyatt project, Soupsongs, which also featured Phil Manzanera and Julie Tippetts, among other jazz and rock luminaries.

His dub-oriented album, The Modern Sound of Harry Beckett, was produced by famed British producer Adrian Sherwood and released on On-U Sound in late 2008.

In 1972, Beckett won the Melody Maker jazz Poll as "Top Trumpeter in Britain". He was a member of the Orchestre National de Jazz between 1997 and 2000.

Beckett died on 22 July 2010 after suffering a stroke."

"Roland Ramanan is a UK improvising trumpeter, known for London Improvisers Orchestra, Roland Ramanan Tentet, Vole."

"Trombonist, composer, and sound installation artist, Robert Jarvis is based in the South East of England and enjoys being involved in a wide range of music making, both as creator and performer.

For the first seven years of his career he worked alongside fellow Kent-based musician Peter Cook on a series of music-based community projects before concentrating on his own education projects, collaborating along the way with many different artists, and eventually receiving The Performing Right Society's Composer-In-Education Award.

From the mid-nineties he began to concentrate more on composition, often making use of found-sounds and integrating these into his score; however, it was not until 2003 that he had the idea of a more installation-type approach to his music making. These pieces were quite successful and led to two separate British Composer Awards as well as an invitation by The British Council to create a new work for the then new Chongqing Planning Exhibition Gallery, in China.

In 2007 he was awarded a residency at The Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden, in Surrey, and this in turn led to a series of other pieces designed for site-specific outdoor spaces, as well as a new body of work drawing from scientific data collected from natural processes, leading to recognition through The PRS New Music Award.

Today, Robert continues to explore new methods for musical creation, attempting to build on his reputation for compositions that entice new appreciations of the sonic landscape and encourage a rethinking of our relationship with our surroundings. His most recent accomplishment is his astronomically inspired aroundNorth sound installation, which is now permanently installed in the grounds of Armagh Observatory.

When not creating or installing, Robert can be regularly heard playing with many different musicians, across different genres, including folk, improv, contemporary, and popular music, as well performing occasionally as a soloist."

"Terry Day: Multi-instrumentalist, Improvisation Pioneer, Song Writer, Tune-Smith, Lyricist, Poet, Painter, Conductor even.

I began Improvising on the drums in a drum duet with my brother Pat in 1955, and in 1960 formed an improvising trio of Piano, bass & drums. Russell Hardy (piano) later became Music composer in Ian Dury's Kilburn & the Highroads.

I am an early 60's First Generation Pioneer of Improvisation, Free Jazz & experimental music. Since the 1960s I have collaborated with many improvising musical Luminaries, Groups, dancers, painters, poets, Artists from around the world, & performed / acted in Alternative Theatre, Events, Rock & Roll, and Nigerian High Life band. .......most of which went unrecorded, or remain "bad" recordings unreleased in my own & private Archives.

I once played many instruments (piano, cello, mandolin, alto & soprano sax), but ill health prevented me from playing for 13 years (1987-2000). Depending on who I am working with, I now play Bamboo Reed Flutes, Drums, Sopranino, Recorders, Balloons & Improvise with my Lyrics, Prose, Verse ( which many call poems - but for me They Are Lyrics ).

Since 2000 I have performed regularly with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) playing Bamboo Reed Flutes, Sopranino, Recorders, Balloons, Drums, & Simultaneously Conducting & Reciting Lyrics, prose, verse with the LIO. I have also performed Recitation Conductions with the Malaga, Tokyo, & Madrid Improvising Orchestras. My recitations also include collaborations with groups & individuals which can be viewed on my website.

Since 2000 I have continued to collaborate with the New Luminaries of improvisation from around the world, & old Veterans such as the People Band. I toured Japan in 2012 working solely with Japanese improvising musical Luminaries, dancers & the calligrapher Setsuhi Shiraishi. I toured Brazil in 2013 giving workshops, performing solo & with Brazilian musicians. I have appeared regularly on Malaga annual music festivals."

"George Lowen Coxhill (19 September 1932 - 10 July 2012), generally known as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist and raconteur. He played the soprano or sopranino saxophone. Coxhill was born to George Compton Coxhill and Mabel Margaret Coxhill (née Motton) at Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK. He grew up in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and bought his first saxophone in 1947. After national service he became a busy semi-professional musician, touring US airbases with Denzil Bailey's Afro-Cubists and the Graham Fleming Combo. In the 1960s he played with visiting American blues, soul and jazz musicians including Rufus Thomas, Mose Allison, Otis Spann, and Champion Jack Dupree. He also developed his practice of playing unaccompanied solo saxophone, often busking in informal performance situations. Other than his solo playing, he performed mostly as a sideman or as an equal collaborator, rather than a conventional leader - there was no regular Lol Coxhill Trio or Quartet as would normally be expected of a saxophonist. Instead he had many intermittent but long-lasting collaborations with like-minded musicians.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a member of Canterbury scene bands Carol Grimes and Delivery and then Kevin Ayers and the Whole World. He became known for his solo playing and for work in duets with pianist Steve Miller and guitarist G. F. Fitzgerald. He was thought to have largely inspired Joni Mitchell's song "For Free", while busking solo on the old footbridge which formed part of the Hungerford Bridge between Waterloo and Charing Cross. Coxhill collaborated with other musicians including Mike Oldfield, Morgan Fisher (of Mott the Hoople), Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath and its musical descendant The Dedication Orchestra, Django Bates, the Damned, Hugh Metcalfe, Derek Bailey and performance art group Welfare State.

He often worked in small collaborative groups with semi-humorous names such as the Johnny Rondo Duo or Trio (with pianist Dave Holland - not the bassist of the same name), the Melody Four (characteristically a trio, with Tony Coe and Steve Beresford), and The Recedents (with guitarist Mike Cooper and percussionist Roger Turner), known as such because the members were (in Coxhill's words) "all bald", though the name may additionally be a play on the American band the Residents. Typically these bands performed a mix of free improvisation interspersed with ballroom dance tunes and popular songs. There was humour throughout his music but he sometimes felt it necessary to tell audiences that the free playing was not intended as a joke. Coxhill was compere and occasional performer at the Bracknell Jazz Festival, and a raconteur as well as a musician; he often would introduce his music by saying the words, "what I am about to play you may not understand". It was following a performance at Bracknell that he recorded the melodramatic monologue Murder in the Air."

"Caroline Kraabel (born 1961 in Torrance, California) is a London-based American composer, improviser and saxophonist. She is known for her research into the implications of electricity related to recording, synthesis and amplification.

After living in Seattle, Kraabel moved to London while in her teenage years, at the end of the punk era.[1] There she took up the saxophone and became active in London's improvised music scene, eventually developing a style based on the physicality of the instrument, extended techniques and acoustics. She has performed solo and collaborated with John Edwards, Veryan Weston,[2] Charlotte Hug, Maggie Nicols,[3] Phil Hargreaves, and the London Improvisors Orchestra[4] among others. She has also organized and conducted pieces for Mass Producers-a 20-piece, all-female saxophone/voice orchestra[5] and for Saxophone Experimentals in Space-a 55-piece group of young saxophonists, as well as with her two children during walks through the streets of London.

Recordings include Transitions with Maggie Nichols and Charlotte Hug,[6] Five Shadows with Veryan Weston, Performances for Large Saxophone Ensemble 1 and 2 and Performances for Large Saxophone Ensemble 3 and 4 with Mass Producers and a solo work Now We Are One Two.

Caroline Kraabel has been hosting a weekly radio show on London's Resonance FM[7] and is the editor for the London Musicians Collective's magazine Resonance."

"ADRIAN NORTHOVER - saxophones, Played and recordings with B Shops for the Poor, The Remote Viewers, Sonicphonics (with Billy Bang), The London Improvisers Orchestra, Ensemble Trip-Tik, Anna Homler, Ricardo Tejero, The Custodians, Sabu Toyozumi, Terry Day, Tristan Honsinger and JJ Duerinckx ,duo CDÕs with Adam Bohman, Tasos Stamou, Daniel Thompson and others. Current projects include ÔHard EvidenceÕ with John Edwards and Steve Noble, playing the music of Thelonious Monk, Vladimir MillerÕs Notes from Underground, ÔHogcallinÕ - a septet playing the music of Charles Mingus, and a trio with Marcio Mattos and Marilza Gouvea. This year (2016) has also seen collaborations with Neil Metcalfe(flute), Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (voice), Vladimir Tarasov (drums), and Marcello Magliocchi (drums) and Daniel Thompson(guitar). Adrian is also involved with Indian music (Jazz Thali ) and works with live music for film (Ensemble Kino)."

"Evan Parker was born in Bristol in 1944 and began to play the saxophone at the age of 14. Initially he played alto and was an admirer of Paul Desmond; by 1960 he had switched to tenor and soprano, following the example of John Coltrane, a major influence who, he would later say, determined "my choice of everything". In 1962 he went to Birmingham University to study botany but a trip to New York, where he heard the Cecil Taylor trio (with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray), prompted a change of mind. What he heard was "music of a strength and intensity to mark me for life ... l came back with my academic ambitions in tatters and a desperate dream of a life playing that kind of music - 'free jazz' they called it then."

Parker stayed in Birmingham for a time, often playing with pianist Howard Riley. In 1966 he moved to London, became a frequent visitor to the Little Theatre Club, centre of the city's emerging free jazz scene, and was soon invited by drummer John Stevens to join the innovative Spontaneous Music Ensemble which was experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation. Parker's first issued recording was SME's 1968 Karyobin, with a line-up of Parker, Stevens, Derek Bailey, Dave Holland and Kenny Wheeler. Parker remained in SME through various fluctuating line-ups - at one point it comprised a duo of Stevens and himself - but the late 1960s also saw him involved in a number of other fruitful associations.

He began a long-standing partnership with guitarist Bailey, with whom he formed the Music Improvisation Company and, in 1970, co-founded Incus Records. (Tony Oxley, in whose sextet Parker was then playing, was a third co-founder; Parker left Incus in the mid-1980s.) Another important connection was with the bassist Peter Kowald who introduced Parker to the German free jazz scene. This led to him playing on Peter Brötzmann's 1968 Machine Gun, Manfred Schoof's 1969 European Echoes and, in 1970, joining pianist Alex von Schlippenbach and percussionist Paul Lovens in the former's trio, of which he is still a member: their recordings include Pakistani Pomade, Three Nails Left, Detto Fra Di Noi, Elf Bagatellen and Physics.

Parker pursued other European links, too, playing in the Pierre Favre Quartet (with Kowald and Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer) and in the Dutch Instant Composers Pool of Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink. The different approaches to free jazz he encountered proved both a challenging and a rewarding experience. He later recalled that the German musicians favoured a "robust, energy-based thing, not to do with delicacy or detailed listening but to do with a kind of spirit-raising, a shamanistic intensity. And l had to find a way of surviving in the heat of that atmosphere ... But after a while those contexts became more interchangeable and more people were involved in the interactions, so all kinds of hybrid musics came out, all kinds of combinations of styles."

A vital catalyst for these interactions were the large ensembles in which Parker participated in the 1970s: Schlippenbach's Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO) and occasional big bands led by Kenny Wheeler. In the late 70s Parker also worked for a time in Wheeler's small group, recording Around Six and, in 1980, he formed his own trio with Guy and LJCO percussionist Paul Lytton (with whom he had already been working in a duo for nearly a decade). This group, together with the Schlippenbach trio, remains one of Parker's top musical priorities: their recordings include Tracks, Atlanta, Imaginary Values, Breaths and Heartbeats, The Redwood Sessions and At the Vortex. In 1980, Parker directed an Improvisers Symposium in Pisa and, in 1981, he organised a special project at London's Actual Festival. By the end of the 1980s he had played in most European countries and had made various tours to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. ln 1990, following the death of Chris McGregor, he was instrumental in organising various tributes to the pianist and his fellow Blue Notes; these included two discs by the Dedication Orchestra, Spirits Rejoice and lxesa.

Though he has worked extensively in both large and small ensembles, Parker is perhaps best known for his solo soprano saxophone music, a singular body of work that in recent years has centred around his continuing exploration of techniques such as circular breathing, split tonguing, overblowing, multiphonics and cross-pattern fingering. These are technical devices, yet Parker's use of them is, he says, less analytical than intuitive; he has likened performing his solo work to entering a kind of trance-state. The resulting music is certainly hypnotic, an uninterrupted flow of snaky, densely-textured sound that Parker has described as "the illusion of polyphony". Many listeners have indeed found it hard to credit that one man can create such intricate, complex music in real time. Parker's first solo recordings, made in 1974, were reissued on the Saxophone Solos CD in 1995; more recent examples are Conic Sections and Process and Reality, on the latter of which he does, for the first time, experiment with multi-tracking. Heard alone on stage, few would disagree with writer Steve Lake that "There is, still, nothing else in music - jazz or otherwise - that remotely resembles an Evan Parker solo concert."

While free improvisation has been Parker's main area of activity over the last three decades, he has also found time for other musical pursuits: he has played in 'popular' contexts with Annette Peacock, Scott Walker and the Charlie Watts big band; he has performed notated pieces by Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Frederic Rzewski; he has written knowledgeably about various ethnic musics in Resonance magazine. A relatively new field of interest for Parker is improvising with live electronics, a dialogue he first documented on the 1990 Hall of Mirrors CD with Walter Prati. Later experiments with electronics in the context of larger ensembles have included the Synergetics - Phonomanie III project at Ullrichsberg in 1993 and concerts by the new EP2 (Evan Parker Electronic Project) in Berlin, Nancy and at the 1995 Stockholm Electronic Music Festival where Parker's regular trio improvised with real-time electronics processed by Prati, Marco Vecchi and Phillip Wachsmann. "Each of the acoustic instrumentalists has an electronic 'shadow' who tracks him and feeds a modified version of his output back to the real-time flow of the music."

The late 80s and 90s brought Parker the chance to play with some of his early heroes. He worked with Cecil Taylor in small and large groups, played with Coltrane percussionist Rashied Ali, recorded with Paul Bley: he also played a solo set as support to Ornette Coleman when Skies of America received its UK premiere in 1988. The same period found Parker renewing his acquaintance with American colleagues such as Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy and George Lewis, with all of whom he had played in the 1970s (often in the context of London's Company festivals). His 1993 duo concert with Braxton moved John Fordham in The Guardian to raptures over "saxophone improvisation of an intensity, virtuosity, drama and balance to tax the memory for comparison".

Parker's 50th birthday in 1994 brought celebratory concerts in several cities, including London, New York and Chicago. The London performance, featuring the Parker and Schlippenbach trios, was issued on a highly-acclaimed two-CD set, while participants at the American concerts included various old friends as well as more recent collaborators in Borah Bergman and Joe Lovano. The NYC radio station WKCR marked the occasion by playing five days of Parker recordings. 1994 also saw the publication of the Evan Parker Discography, compiled by ltalian writer Francesco Martinelli, plus chapters on Parker in books on contemporary musics by John Corbett and Graham Lock.

Parker's future plans involve exploring further possibilities in electronics and the development of his solo music. They also depend to a large degree on continuity of the trios, of the large ensembles, of his more occasional yet still long-standing associations with that pool of musicians to whose work he remains attracted. This attraction, he explained to Coda's Laurence Svirchev, is attributable to "the personal quality of an individual voice". The players to whom he is drawn "have a language which is coherent, that is, you know who the participants are. At the same time, their language is flexible enough that they can make sense of playing with each other ... l like people who can do that, who have an intensity of purpose." "

"Growing up in Kenya and Cumbria and starting out as a classical violinist, Alison Blunt has become an internationally respected artist creating music utilising or consisting of improvisation, Her solo and collaborative projects often reach beyond the music stage and involve film, text, dance, theatre and visual art.

Alison Blunt was born in Mombasa, Kenya, grew up in Nairobi and subsequently in the Lake District, UK. Finding her way from a classical violin training at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Alison's fascination with sound, motion and space has led her into national and international projects exploring the boundaries between art forms and genres and creating, performing and recording new music.

She has performed new and creative work in contrasting environments including Royal Albert Hall, BFI, Southbank Centre, Barbican, Sage Gateshead, Sesc Pompeia (Brazil), MS Stubnitz (Germany), Boat Ting, Colourscape Music Festival, Little Angel Theatre, Vortex Jazz Club, Cafe Oto, Colston Hall, Symphony Hall, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Latitude Festival, Bimhuis (Holland), SoundOut Festival and ACME (Australia), Musikhuset Aarhus (Denmark), St Magnus Festival & Mull Theatre (Scotland), European Storytelling Marathons (Holland & Belgium), Alte Gerberei (St Johann, Tirol), MS Stubnitz, Radialsystem, & B-Flat (Germany), Stockwerk Jazz Club (Styria), Wunderbar (South Island NZ) and The Kosmos (New Mexico USA) with a diverse array of creative artists including Apartment House, Apocryphal Theatre Company, Renee Baker, Julia Barclay-Morton, Barrel, Barcode Quartet, Cristiano Calcagnile, Lawrence Casserley, Viv Corringham, Guy Dartnell, John Edwards, Vinny Golia, HANAM Quintet, Elisabeth Harnik, Tristan Honsinger, Cat Hope, Birthe Jorgensen, Tony Marsh (RIP), Hannah Marshall, Lisa Mezzacappa, Gianni Mimmo, Phil Minton, Lode, London and Berlin Improvisers Orchestras, Evan Parker, Pierette Ensemble, Reciprocal Uncles, Gino Robair, Mark Sanders, Guillaume Viltard, Ove Volquartz and Michael Zerang.

Alison's activities range from composing for film, visual arts, theatre and contemporary dance productions to touring solo musical storytelling performances, from performances with interdisciplinary ensembles to arranging and recording children's albums, from gigging with rock bands to gigging with world folk music artists, from writing about new music to performing and recording new music. Alison resists being pigeonholed."

"Sylvia Hallett studied music at Dartington, and then spent two years studying composition with Max Deutsch in Paris. She now works as both composer and improviser.

She has played in many international festivals since the late 1970s, having worked with several well-known and respected musicians, including David Toop, Alasdair Roberts, Evan Parker, Anna Homler, the late Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols, Phil Minton. Groups include Accordions Go Crazy, LaXula, British Summer Time Ends, Arc,The London Improvisers Orchestra, The London Hardingfelelag and The Heliocentrics. She also performs solo, (eg. in Vigne Museum, Rosazzo, Italy 2015), and in duo with Clive Bell, with Mike Adcock, with Anna Homler and with Chris Dowding.

Projects with various theatre and dance companies include collaborations with the dancer/choreographers h2dance (Hanna Gillgren and Heidi Rustgaard), Miranda Tufnell, Emilyn Claid, Jacky Lansley, Lost Dog, and Eva Karczag, the live art puppeteer Nenagh Watson, and Suffolk-based Wonderful Beast. She has performed and musically directed the music of Adrian Lee in world tours with the Young Vic's highly acclaimed "Grimm Tales", and The Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of "Comedy of Errors" , "Tales from Ovid" and "Canterbury Tales".

Sylvia has released three solo CDs, two on the MASH label, which contain songs, improvisations, and tape collage pieces derived from her compositions for theatre and dance. Her 3rd solo release, White Fog on the EMANEM label features the bowed bicycle wheel. She has also recorded numerous albums with groups and duos.

Commissions for 22 BBC Radio Drama include Tess of the D'Urbevilles, Kings, and Virginia Woolf's Kew Gardens."

"Hannah Marshall is a cellist who is continuing to extract and invent as many sounds and emotional qualities from her instrument as she can , playing experimental & freely improvised music and collaborating with other musicians, theatre and performing artists in the UK and Europe. She trained at The Guildhall school of music and Drama from 1992-1996. She plays regularly with The London Improvisors Orchestra and has performed at various festivals including VNM-Graz, Freedom of the City - London, Fete Qua Qua, Nickelsdorf-Konfrontationen, Banlieue Bleu-Paris, Jazz em Agosto-Lisbon, Barcelona Horta Cordel, ring ring-belgrade, Wels Unlimited- Austria, Alpen Glow - UK/Austria, Taktlos, Nantes festival, Saalfelden jazz festival, Red Ear Amsterdam, thirstyfish festival - London, Konfrontationen, Akouphene-Geneva, Europa Jazz Festival, Joyful Noise Festival- Swtizerland, Blurred Edges Festival- Hamburg. She has been invited by Fred Frith, Thomas Lehn and Suichi Chino in their residencies at café Oto, and by Evan Parker in his monthly residency at The Vortex Club."

"Marcio Mattos was born Rio de Janeiro, 20th March 1946; double bass, 'cello.

Studied acoustic guitar in early teens, switching to double bass and cello, mainly self-taught, after becoming interested in Jazz. Later entered the Villa-Lobos institute where he became involved in improvisation and electronic music. Since coming to Europe in 1970 has performed, recorded and broadcast both in Britain and abroad in groups including John Surman, Evan Parker, John Stevens, Keith Tippett, Derek Bailey's Company, Dewey Redman and Marylin Crispell amongst others. Has also worked with dance companies such as Ballet Rambert and The Extemporary Dance Theatre Company, and in electro-acoustic music groups such as the West Square Electronic Music Ensemble.

A long- standing member of the Eddie Prevost Quartet and various Elton Dean groups. Other current British projects include the "Bardo State Orchestra", Chris Burn's Ensemble, "Wooden Taps" with Maggie Nicols, "Embers" with John Butcher and others, "Lines" with Phil Wachsmann/Jim Denley and others, and "Full Monte" with Chris Biscoe, Brian Godding and Tony Marsh . International projects working in Europe have included Georg Graewe's Grubenklang Orchestra, Stefano Maltese's "Open Music Ensemble", Tony Oxley's Celebration Orchestra, "AXON"- trio with Phil Minton and Martin Blume , bass/cello and shakuhachi duo with Shiku Yano, and in Japan various groupings with Sabu Toyozumi and Keiko Midorikawa.

Also trained as a Ceramic artist at Goldsmiths college and continues to make and exhibit work in clay."

"Born Cambridge, England, in January 1980; played bass guitar since 1994; studied with Hugh Boyd and Pascha Milner and at Basstech (London) with Rob Burns, Terry Gregory and others. Played double bass since 2001; basically self taught, with grateful thanks to Simon H. Fell. First class BA in English Literature from Oxford University (2002). Received MA Composition from Oxford Brookes University in 2003, having studied with Paul Whitty, Ray Lee and others. Received PhD from Brunel University in 2010, having studied the work of Derek Bailey, Helmut Lachenmann and JH Prynne and been supervised by Richard Barrett and John Croft."

"David Leahy is a Kent (UK) based musician and dancer specialising in things improvised, from Free Improvisation in music to Contact Improvisation in dance.

In my past, I journeyed through Classical music, through celtic and world music to arrive at Jazz, before focusing my energy on music with less recognisable stylistic constraints. My relationship with dance began as a composer for choreographies, before becoming an accompanist and finally a dancer myself.

I now maintain a duel practice working in the UK and internationally as a soloist and performer (music, dance and combined) / accompanist / composer / conductor and facilitator.

I produce my own work as well as in collaboration with others. Notable ongoing relationships with individuals and institutions include ; London Improvisers Orchestra, Wuppertal Improvisers Orchestra, MbUSkers (Kent-based MbUS group), and Improvisers on the European free improvised music scene. Fevered Sleep (Theatre Company), London Contact Improvisers, Trinity Laban, Greenwich Dance Agency, Underscores in London, Slap, Tina Krasevec, Hagit Yakari, Daun Ensemble, Deirdre Starr, Geraldo Si, Benedict Taylor, Angeline Conaghan and Groundswell Arts.

I recently completed a Masters in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban, which focused on my movement practice. However, my final project centred around the translation of the Contact Improvisation framework, the Underscore developed by Nancy Stark Smith, so as to be suitable for improvising musicians (Music-based Underscore). This is now an ongoing practice with regular sessions in both Kent and London, which is also fuelling plans for further study into music as a somatic practice.

"Dave Tucker started performing in the Punk movement of the late 70's in Manchester. His first recorded release was 1978 with Mellatron. In the early 80's he was a member of "The Fall" touring as well as recording "Slates" and aJohn Peel sessions with the group. After this time he experimented with other music's and recorded film music. After moving to London in the mid - 80's he studied & performed with Phillip Wachsmann as well as playing with members of the London scene including Dudu Pukwana, Andy Sheppard, Nick Evans, Johnny Dyani & John Stevens as well as others. Was and still is a member of the Alan Tomlinson Trio from 1992 which toured Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia. The trio also performed at many leading festivals at this time. Around this time he also performed with many leading International musicians including Keith Tippett, Otomo Yoshide, Charles Hayward, Barre Phillips, Dietmar Diesner & Lol Coxhill. Recently he toured California from which the PAX release is from. As well as a duo performance with Bill Roper at SIMF festivail in Seattle Febuary 2004 and performances in New York City with Lukas Ligeti He is a member of Pat Thomas' group Scatter (Phil Minton, Roger Turner) with whom he has performed at the Uncool 99 festival in Switzerland as well as recorded radio sessions for the BBC. He currently Performs in a Trio with Louis Moholo & Francine Luce., a duo with John Butcher , leads his own Quartet "School of Velocity" featuring, Evan Parker, John Edwards & Steve Noble and plays Guitar and conducts with the London Improvisers Orchestra & Winkhaus with LA performance artist Anna Homler & Adrian Northover and also has performed tours in the Czech Rebublic with the "Earthieves" He also produces dance music & soundtracks. Most recently comissioned to produce music or Channel four news He has had his first piece of written music performed at the 8th London New Wind festival."

"Born in 1950, and moved from Cornwall to London in 1972 and began playing as a freelance jazz pianist as well as developing as an improviser at Little Theatre Club.


1975-85: Residency & fellowship for Digswell Arts Trust (Hertfordshire). Activities included:

Collaborations with visual artists (potter-Elizabeth Fritsch and fine artist Steve Cochrane).
Work on written theoretical material, commissioned by The Digswell Arts Trust.
Co-ordinating music workshops, supported by Eastern Arts Association.
Co-founded and composed for young local group - Stinky Winkles, voted 'Young Musician of 1979' by Greater London Arts Association and won first prizes in France, Spain and Poland.
Collaborations with Lol Coxhill, music for Derek Jarman Film. First released recordings.

Throughout 1980s and early 90s worked with Eddie PrŽvost Quartet, Trevor Watts' MoirŽ Music and Lol Coxhill and Phil Minton. Major festivals have included Zurich, Berlin, Nickelsdorf, Karlsruhr, Warsaw, Wroclaw, San Sebastian, Bombay, Vancouver, Nancy, Aukland, Nevers, Washington, Lille, Houston, Le Mans, Strasbourg, Bologna and Victoriaville.

Ensemble projects with Minton:

Duo - Ways, Ways Past, and....Past - diverse songs, originals & improvisation structures.
Songs from a Prison Diary - French commission for 25 singers with poems by Ho Chi Minh.
Naming the Animals -a quartet with Lianne Carol and Ian Shaw, words by Adrian Mitchell.
Mouthfull of ecstasy - with John Butcher, Roger Turner, texts from Joyce's Finnegans wake.
Makhno - for chamber choir commissioned by Taktlos Festival 1997.
4Walls - a quartet with songs and improvisations with Luc Ex and Michael Vatcher.


Other recent duo collaborations with:

Trevor Watts - improvisations with a feeling of form, where rhythm and melody sit comfortably with more abstract moments. A major current project.
Caroline Kraabel - duets that explore acoustic phenomena related to two instruments and how these sounds interact in specific acoustic spaces.
Jon Rose - improvisations using different acoustic keyboards and violins with selected tunings derived from science, history and the imagination.
Hugh Metcalfe - Films by Hugh, images of objects, animals, humans, holidays, journeys, unfold, transform, collide and provide the basis for accompanying duet improvisations.


Local activities:

(1995-6) playing in rhythm section for 'Changes' jazz club in North London with British jazz artists.
Awarded A4E National Lottery support to give series of workshops/concerts with John Edwards & Mark Sanders titled 'Playing Together' in East Anglia (1998).

Helped coordinate and arrange the Lindsay Cooper Song Project (1999). European festivals - Taktlos (Zurich), Angelica (Bologna, commissioned arrangement of "Oh Moscow" for orchestra), Moers (Germany) and Roccella Jonica (Italy)"

"Jackie Walduck is a composer and vibraphone player, whose work explores the exchanges between written and improvised music and the musicians that create it. ​She works with classical, contemporary and jazz musicians from beginner to professional, and collaborates with dancers, artistis and film-makers in a range of contexts to create new work. In 1998, City University awarded her a PhD in collaborative composition. She was invited by the British Council to work in Oman in 2001-3, where she developed a creative strand for the Omani music curriculum, as well as composing the first ever collaborative piece with children and Omani musicians. Her film score for The Dress was premiered at Cannes in 2007. Recent collaborations have been with Kala Ramnath, Amjad Ali Khan and musicians from Shivanova.

In 2008 she formed Ignite with Wigmore Hall Learning a new type of chamber ensemble, working through improvisation. As Wigmore Hall's Learnign Ensemble in Residence, Ignite engages people of all ages from the Westminster community with the creative and interactive aspects of chamber music making. The band has become an energetic and adventurous ensemble, commissioning over 20 new improvised works from leading composers, and breaking new ground at Wigmore Hall with the first late-night concerts, Open House days, and large-scale community projects. Beyond Wigmore Hall, Ignite is making its mark as a fiery new music ensemble, performing at Kings Place, NAtional Portrait Gallery and Whittington Chamber Music Festival.

2015 sees the launch of Tactile, an ensemble of sighted, partially sighted and blind musicians, all working blindfold. We will create music without visual cues, exploring the gift of darkness, as well as creating tactile scores for improvisation with artist Viyki Turnbull. All performances will take place in darkened spaces, immersing the audience in a world in which the visual is extraneous to sound."

"Javier Carmona is a drummer and percussionist from Madrid (now settled in Barcelona after seven years in London), Javier is very active in the European free improvisation scene and has performed with musicians such as John Tchicai, Evan Parker, Carlos Zingaro and John Russell, among many others.

Member of several formations, Javier also collaborates with dancers Rosa Aledo and Saija Lehtola in Kicking Louise & Co., a dance company that has presented work in France, Cyprus, Spain and England.

Organizer of FIL Malaga, a festival of free improvised music including performances and workshops, Javier has also led student workshops about free improvisation in Newport University (with Kamil Korolczuk), Westminster University (with Sakoto Fukuda) and Huddersfield University (with Ingrid Laubrock and Olie Brice).

Co-founder alongside graphic designer and electronics player Kamil Korolczuk of Oso Records, a netlabel of free downloadable music focused on releasing various types of experimental music."

Robert Henderson: Trumpeter, Glasgow:

"I am an experienced musician, a fluent improviser, up for a challenge. I have some experience in acting. I have played in many different musical situations, recording sessions and gigs through my career. While my background is jazz, in recent years I have been involved in more pop and commercial sessions and gigs with the likes of Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, Belle and Sebastian. I have also been involved in acting and playing with a fantastic Scottish artpop group A Band Called Quinn- Whose Company Tromolo Productions , are the most innovative and creative thing going on in Theater/Music anywhere."

"George Murray began playing the piano and trombone aged 9. He played in Bodmin School Band and Cornwall Youth Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra before going on to study and Trinity College of Music in London.

George has performed and recorded in wide variety of contexts, in a number of innovative ensembles.

In contemporary music he has appeared as a guest soloist with Scottish Clarinet Quartet and performed regularly with the Glasgow based contemporary music group Symposia.

George was a member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra through which he has had the opportunity of working and recording with George Lewis, Maggie Nichols, Barry Guy and Evan Parker in a variety of different contexts. He has also recorded in Germany with Saxophonist John Tchicai and Joachim Irmler.

George has also been working as a Music Therapist and teacher for the last 12 years. He is passionate about music, and its benefits, people respond to music in a fantastic way. He is interested in person-centred learning and working with his pupils to help them to identify and fulfill their goals."

"Emma Roche began studying flute at the Cork School of Music. She moved to Glasgow to study with David Nicholson at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she was the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the John McGregor Flute Prize, the Governors' Woodwind Recital Prize and the Mary D. Adams Chamber Prize. Emma has had solo recitals broadcast on RTE Lyric FM and BBC Radio 3. She performs regularly around Scotland and in Ireland with the Gliouder Ensemble and is also a member of the Glasgow Improvisers' Orchestra. She also teaches flute at Stewarton Academy, St George's School for Girls and Fettes College."

"Raymond MacDonald co-leads The Burt/MacDonald Quartet and is a founder member and key player in The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. He also performs with The Scottish Jazz Composers Ensemble and the saxophone quartet Rich in Knuckles. He has recently collaborated Lol Coxhill, Keith Tippett, Harry Beckett, Evan Parker, Gunter Baby Sommer, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe, George Lewis, Maggie Nicols, Satoko Fujii, Ken Hyder, Natsuki Tamura, Steve Beresford, Mike Zerang, and Fred Longberg-holm.

Other work includes composing and performing for film, television, theatre and collaborations with visual artists, including commissioned work for Martin Boyce, Simon Starling and Christine Borland. He collaborated with David Byrne on David McKenzie's film Young Adam.

In December 2005 he made a solo tour of Japan and in July 2006 performed with Josh Abrams and Miguel Carvalhais at The Glasgow International Jazz festival."

"Graeme Wilson is a saxophonist & composer based in Newcastle in the north of England. His previous years on the jazz scene in Glasgow included work with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Bill Wells Octet and The Delgados. As a composer he has produced scores for large and small ensembles, particularly written work for saxophone quartet. He has been a leading member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra in their recordings, international performances and collaborations with, among others, Fred Frith, Evan Parker and Barry Guy, and has contributed improvised interactions and soundtracks for artists' video work including Gair Dunlop and Dan Norton's interactive archive film site The Tomorrows Project at the Commonwealth Film Festival, and Cath Keay's Silkmoths. Recent work includes a textual score performed by GIO and Gunther Sommer's Dresden ensemble, a commission for saxophone ensemble for An Tobar Arts Centre on Mull, and improvisations responding to oral history from archives in the North-East at Culture Lab in Newcastle."

"Peter Nicholson is a UK cellist, known for the groups Age Of Wire And String, London Improvisers Orchestra, The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, The One Ensemble, The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden, and The One Ensemble Orchestra. He is Senior Musician and Director of Music at Scotland's Sistema Scotland team since 2009. Nicholson is a graduate of the University of York and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland). He has extensive experience as a teacher and workshop leader in local authority, higher education and third sector contexts. As a freelance cellist, he has worked with a range of professional symphony orchestras and ensembles alongside establishing a reputation for working across genres and styles as a composer and performer. Peter is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and The One Ensemble."

Armin Sturm is a bassist and composer, a member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

"George Burt is a guitarist and composer based in Falkirk. Early experience includes playing in folk groups, ceilidh bands, pit bands, and mainstream and Trad jazz groups. He has devised a number of works for GIO including Improcherto (for HB) which GIO performed at the 2011 Gateshead Jazz Festival.

He ran a series of improvisation workshops in the 90s, and this eventually led to the formation of the George Burt/Raymond MacDonald Quartet (BMacD). The group was described by the Penguin Guide to Jazz as the leading partnership on the modern/free scene in Scotland, making impressive international associations. These included Harry Beckett, Keith Tippett and Lol Coxhill. The group's crowning achievement is a pair of concept albums celebrating the lives of the Victorian traveller Isabella Bird and her sister Henrietta. He has been lucky enough to perform with a number of his favourite musicians; Barry Guy, Julie Tippetts and Mat Maneri, as well as his two favourite guitarists, Susan Alcorn and Bill Wells."

Neil Davidson is a UK guitarist and improviser, known for the groups Age Of Wire And String, Aporias Trio, Dvell, Muris, Muris With Lumps, The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and With Lumps. He has performed with other improvisers including Arild Vange, Frode Eggen, Fritz Welch, Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues, Hernani Faustino, George Lewis, Nick Fells, Aileen Campbell, Una MacGlone, Tatsuya Nakatani, Raymond MacDonald, Peter Nicholson, Rhodri Davies, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Jane Dickson, Patrick Farmer, Nicole McNeilly, and Michael Shearer.

Rick Bamford started being pro-active in music making for people with disabilities in 1990 and pioneered many creative UK projects while developing solutions for individual musicians. He is also a professional drummer and percussion player, with many years of performance and music education experience. Rick also has a wide range of studio based knowledge, from the scanning of eye movement to trigger MIDI messages to digital recording, mixing and production, and has designed Drake Music Scotland's new recording studio which launched in spring 2010."

"Stuart Brown is a full time drummer, band leader, producer, composer and drum teacher based in Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. He endorses Roland Electronic Percussion products.

After studying Electronics with Music (BEng, 1st class honours) at Glasgow University Stuart went on to attend Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA on scholarship, where his private teachers included Kenwood Dennard (Sting, Miles Davis) and Ian Froman (Mike Stern). He has also taken lessons with Ralph Peterson, Ari Hoenig, Clarence Penn, Ed Uribe, Stanton Moore, Steve White, Mark Guiliana and more.

Since leaving Berklee Stuart has gone on to be one of the most in demand drummers in Scotland and has built a strong and diverse musical performance career that encompasses jazz, rock, latin, folk, electronic music, free improv and much more. He is also an established bandleader and composer, writing for his own groups and also creating music for film and advertising.

As a drummer he has toured internationally around Europe, USA, India, Brazil and New Zealand and has worked with many national and international artists including Craig Armstrong (film composer for Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, etc), Niki Haris (Maddona's backing singer), David Byrne of Talking Heads (for the Young Adam film sound track), Tom Jones, Horse, Barbara Morrison, Rab Noakes, Darius Campbell, Dave Gordon (SunRa Arkestra) Evan Parker, Fred Frith, George Lewis, John Hollenbeck and the unique Orquestra Scotland Brazil project (a British council funded project featuring 16 Scottish and Brazilian musicians).



His own critically acclaimed group, Stu Brown's Twisted Toons (which performs live cartoon scores by Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley and Raymond Scott) has released two albums, which were featured in Mojo Magazines Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2009 and 2016 and in The Times Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2016.

Other current groups and artists that he works with include: Electronic duo Herschel 36, Jill Jackson, Sugarwork, Simon Thacker's Ritmata, Mario Caribé's Boteco Trio, Niki King, Brian Molley Quartet, Glasgow Imrovisers Orchestra, Martin Kershaw's "Hero as a Riddle", Chick Lyall Quintet, Paul Harrison Trio, Carrie Fertig's Glass Percussion project and Drawn to Water. He also co-runs the Jazz at The 78 weekly jazz session with Euan Burton (bass) and Tom Gibbs (piano) which has helped revitalize the jazz community in Glasgow since 2007 by bringing together established and emerging players.

As a composer he has been commissioned to create several works, including a 2010 collaborative work with American drummer John Hollenbeck for Edinburgh Jazz Festival and a 2016 Hippfest commission to create a new live score for the 1926 German silent film, Wunder Der Schöpfung. This was performed by his electronic duo, Herschel 36 and went on to tour Scotland and England in 2016 to critical acclaim. Working as part of Toad's Caravan motion graphics studio, Stuart has also created music and sound for commercial clients include Citizen's Theatre, Starcatchers, Kuoni Travel, Mary's Meals, and more.

As a drum teacher and educator, Stuart works part time for Glasgow schools, is the resident drum tutor on both the Napier University and Glasgow Jazz Summer Schools does regular teaching sessions at DD Drums in Falkirk. He also has a number of private drum students and does additional freelance workshops in Samba drumming, electronic music, animation and more. In addition, he has also presented drum masterclasses in jazz and Brazilian drum kit including appearances at The Scottish Drum Fair 2013 and Sage Jazz Festival 2010."