GIO Festival IV Program
Throughout the festival: Members of GIO / George Burt performing ‘to dree the darg and the dowie for the life that’s worth it aa’, various times and locations.
Friday 25th
19:45 Festival Welcome Gallery
20:00 The Rope & Duck Company Gallery
20:45 GIO / Liene Rozite : Ord CCA5
21:30 Satoko Fujii CCA5
22:15 Collaborative duo CCA5
22:45 George Burt / Miguel Carvalhais / Raymond MacDonald / Bill Wells CCA5
Saturday 26th
11:00 Workshop (booking required) Creative Lab
15:00 Renee’ Baker Workshop Performance
15:30 Andreas Gogol / Armin Sturm with members of GIO: Interference in Motion - Experimental Short Films & Live Scoring CCA4
16:00 Drum Quartet: Stuart Brown/Tom Bancroft/Chris Wallace/ Fritz Welch CCA5
18:00 Psykick Dancehall : Discussion / Talk CCA4
19:30 Gliondar Ensemble / GIO / Emma Roche CCA5
20:15 Muris With Lumps & Peter Nicholson : Michelada Miseries CCA
21:00 Improvised encounters between guest players and members of the orchestra CCA 5
22:15 Jan Bang / GIO : Jan Bang sampling and remixing live amidst the orchestra CCA5
Post Festival party in the CCA Terrace Bar – all welcome.
Sunday 27th Workshops Booking essential – email giocontact@gmail.com
10:30 Improvisation for 3-5 year olds plus parents/carers. Develop your child’s creativity with improvisation. Expect fun, creative sounds and musical ideas to take away. This workshop is free but ticketed.
13:30 Improvisation for String Educators, led by Renee’ Baker. This workshop costs £10, please email giocontact@gmail.com for booking information.
Members of GIO / George Burt : ‘to dree the darg and the dowie for the life that’s worth it aa’. Throughout the festival, various locations.
This piece is about the working day and all the stops, starts, interruptions, distractions and continuities that make it unique. I used to work in a place where there was a radio tuned to FM just behind my desk, and my day was punctuated by a long series of pop songs, news bulletins, adverts and deejay egos. Some days I was moving around a lot, and so I only got snippets. Other days, I would hear the whole day’s output, fading in and out depending on my level of concentration on the tasks in hand.
“to dree the darg…” consists of a series of mini-performances at various times, in different locations throughout the festival. A solo player will be accompanied by music from a portable CD player, not knowing what (if anything) is going to be on the CDs as they play. You don’t have to hear every single one of the performances. You don’t have to hang around. Please feel free to engage the players in conversation, while respecting their right to do their job. The piece is dedicated to East Dunbartonshire’s Learning & Skills team with my affection, respect and thanks.
George Burt is a guitarist, composer and improviser based in Falkirk. His background is in folk music and jazz.
Friday 25th
The Rope & Duck Company
Aileen Campbell – voice, Emma Roche – flute, Una MacGlone - bass
This performance draws on the varied backgrounds of the three artists, presenting a moving image work which shows the flexible accumulation of their sound and music making practices. Aileen Campbell's video score borrows from and manipulates these environments, mixing and assembling the three worlds into layers of flickering matter. Referring directly to the personal and musical histories of their associated genres as well as to the relationship of moving image and sound making. The moving image gathers together the stage, the stalls and the mannerisms of the environments familiar to their experience, into an abstract score for these performers.
The unlikely combination of a sound artist, classical flautist and double bassist make up The Rope and Duck Company. The group draws on, chews up and twists the sum of their diverse backgrounds covering multiple genres and disciplines creating unique improvised chamber music employing both familiar and extended techniques.
GIO / Liene Rozite : Ord
The piece involves each player of the orchestra performing without their instrument. The aim is to create a relatively even starting point for all the performers and to create a different kind of tension when the group has to perform without the comfort and amplification of their usual instruments. Each player will be given a word from which each letter will be uttered during the course of the piece. The interaction between players will be more or less the same as in a group improvisation, using this restricted material. This will create a relatively sparse piece where the audience may initially perceive an attempt to communicate specific words but because these words will be neither clear nor relevant, the lack of narrative will become apparent both in the text and music.
Liene Rozite is founder member of the Cr:acc ensemble, has played in the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra for two years and is in a conceptual composition / improvisation duo called Muris with Neil Davidson. She also plays in the post Helhesten wonder-group She On Say with our guests from the Dancehall journal. Liene is a composer of quasi-fluxus body performances and completed a postgraduate diploma in composition at the University of Glasgow.
Satoko Fujii
Satoko Fujii has a long established connection with Glasgow having worked with GIO at the Glasgow Jazz Festival in 2008 and performed and recorded with Raymond MacDonald, George Burt and Neil Davidson on a number of occasions, in Scotland and Japan. As a pianist, composer and band-leader she is regarded one of the most original voices in jazz today. The Tokyo resident synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative and instantly recognizable music. Since 1997, she has released a steady stream of acclaimed releases for large ensemble, led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music and earned critical acclaim for her trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black. In addition to playing accordion in her husband trumpeter Natsuki Tamura’s Gato Libre quartet, she also performs in a duo with Tamura, as an unaccompanied soloist, and in ad hoc groupings with musicians working in different genres. She tours regularly appearing at festivals and clubs in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe.
George Burt / Miguel Carvalhais / Raymond MacDonald / Bill Wells
This group share a wide circle of mutual contacts and collaborators but have never actually worked together before. A shared love of B-sides, obscure popsongs, light classics, and film music (the subliminal stuff behind the action as well as the great film themes) forms the musical substrate for this new concert of highly evocative short pieces.
Bill Wells is the mastermind behind many of Scotland’s most fruitful collaborations, currently blazing a trail along the left wing of pop with Aiden Moffat; Miguel Carvalhais is one of Portugal most respected electronic musicians and a driving force behind the influential Conica label. George Burt’s collaborations with Susan Alcorn and John Russell have been among the highlights of past GIOfests. Raymond MacDonald’s powerful saxophone playing has led to collaborations with Marilyn Crispell and Gunter Sommer. Less well-known is his profound melodic sensibility. From minimal-esque fragility to electronica and raucous free jazz, the quartet will premier 6 new darkly melodic, highly textured miniatures that explore pop sensibilities and improvisational conventions.
Saturday 26th
Renee’ Baker Workshop Performance
Renee’ Baker is a member of the AACM, a Chicago based organisation with a 40 year history of ground-breaking education work as well as producing several key figures in Improvised music such as Anthony Braxton, and George Lewis. She will bring her own unique vision to the festival running a workshop for anyone who makes any kind of sound and wants to explore improvised music.
As an improvisor, Renée has performed and recorded with Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings, Karl E. H. Seigfried’s New Quartet and Galaxy String Quartet, the David Boykin Expanse, George Lewis, Mwata Bowden, the Great Black Music Ensemble, the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. She is a proud member of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). She is Principal Violist of the internationally-renowned Chicago Sinfonietta; and has worked with the orchestra since its founding in 1987. Renee’ has been a participant in many international music festivals including Classical Music Festival (Eisenstadt, Austria), Aspen Music Festival, AIMS (Graz, Austria), and Philomusica di Chicago (Martigues, France). She has performed extensively throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. She has performed numerous solo recitals at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, and has been a featured performer with many chamber music ensembles, including her own FAQtet - an ensemble that primarily performs classic repertoire by African-American composers.
To book a place on the workshop contact giocontact@gmail.com
Andreas Gogol / Armin Sturm with members of GIO: Interference in Motion - Experimental Short Films & Live Scoring
The unlikely combination of a sound artist, classical flautist and double bassist make up The Rope and Duck Company. The group draws on, chews up and twists the sum of their diverse backgrounds covering multiple genres and disciplines creating unique improvised chamber music employing both familiar and extended techniques.
GIO / Liene Rozite : Ord
The piece involves each player of the orchestra performing without their instrument. The aim is to create a relatively even starting point for all the performers and to create a different kind of tension when the group has to perform without the comfort and amplification of their usual instruments. Each player will be given a word from which each letter will be uttered during the course of the piece. The interaction between players will be more or less the same as in a group improvisation, using this restricted material. This will create a relatively sparse piece where the audience may initially perceive an attempt to communicate specific words but because these words will be neither clear nor relevant, the lack of narrative will become apparent both in the text and music.
Liene Rozite is founder member of the Cr:acc ensemble, has played in the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra for two years and is in a conceptual composition / improvisation duo called Muris with Neil Davidson. She also plays in the post Helhesten wonder-group She On Say with our guests from the Dancehall journal. Liene is a composer of quasi-fluxus body performances and completed a postgraduate diploma in composition at the University of Glasgow.
Satoko Fujii
Satoko Fujii has a long established connection with Glasgow having worked with GIO at the Glasgow Jazz Festival in 2008 and performed and recorded with Raymond MacDonald, George Burt and Neil Davidson on a number of occasions, in Scotland and Japan. As a pianist, composer and band-leader she is regarded one of the most original voices in jazz today. The Tokyo resident synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative and instantly recognizable music. Since 1997, she has released a steady stream of acclaimed releases for large ensemble, led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music and earned critical acclaim for her trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black. In addition to playing accordion in her husband trumpeter Natsuki Tamura’s Gato Libre quartet, she also performs in a duo with Tamura, as an unaccompanied soloist, and in ad hoc groupings with musicians working in different genres. She tours regularly appearing at festivals and clubs in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe.
George Burt / Miguel Carvalhais / Raymond MacDonald / Bill Wells
This group share a wide circle of mutual contacts and collaborators but have never actually worked together before. A shared love of B-sides, obscure popsongs, light classics, and film music (the subliminal stuff behind the action as well as the great film themes) forms the musical substrate for this new concert of highly evocative short pieces.
Bill Wells is the mastermind behind many of Scotland’s most fruitful collaborations, currently blazing a trail along the left wing of pop with Aiden Moffat; Miguel Carvalhais is one of Portugal most respected electronic musicians and a driving force behind the influential Conica label. George Burt’s collaborations with Susan Alcorn and John Russell have been among the highlights of past GIOfests. Raymond MacDonald’s powerful saxophone playing has led to collaborations with Marilyn Crispell and Gunter Sommer. Less well-known is his profound melodic sensibility. From minimal-esque fragility to electronica and raucous free jazz, the quartet will premier 6 new darkly melodic, highly textured miniatures that explore pop sensibilities and improvisational conventions.
Saturday 26th
Renee’ Baker Workshop Performance
Renee’ Baker is a member of the AACM, a Chicago based organisation with a 40 year history of ground-breaking education work as well as producing several key figures in Improvised music such as Anthony Braxton, and George Lewis. She will bring her own unique vision to the festival running a workshop for anyone who makes any kind of sound and wants to explore improvised music.
As an improvisor, Renée has performed and recorded with Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings, Karl E. H. Seigfried’s New Quartet and Galaxy String Quartet, the David Boykin Expanse, George Lewis, Mwata Bowden, the Great Black Music Ensemble, the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. She is a proud member of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). She is Principal Violist of the internationally-renowned Chicago Sinfonietta; and has worked with the orchestra since its founding in 1987. Renee’ has been a participant in many international music festivals including Classical Music Festival (Eisenstadt, Austria), Aspen Music Festival, AIMS (Graz, Austria), and Philomusica di Chicago (Martigues, France). She has performed extensively throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. She has performed numerous solo recitals at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, and has been a featured performer with many chamber music ensembles, including her own FAQtet - an ensemble that primarily performs classic repertoire by African-American composers.
To book a place on the workshop contact giocontact@gmail.com
Andreas Gogol / Armin Sturm with members of GIO: Interference in Motion - Experimental Short Films & Live Scoring
The selected films are short movies of a length of between one to ten minutes. Some of the works are linked to specific locations, as indicated by their titles. There is no obvious narration and the images seem to follow magnetic tropes of their own weird dream-like logic. By copying footage between different formats and encroaching upon this process, Andreas Gogol explores and at times transcends the materiality of the medium and its rhythm. In this performance, live music structured by Armin Sturm will be played to the films for the first time.
Andreas Gogol is an experimental musician and filmmaker based in Berlin / Germany. He was a member of “StattWerke”, an experimental workshop between 1996 – 2003 - has worked with Telemach Wiesinger (16mm Film & Live Sound), C-Schulz, Guido Möbius etc. and also played many concerts as a Solo-Artist.
Drum Quartet: Stuart Brown/Tom Bancroft/Chris Wallace/ Fritz Welch
This first performance by a newly formed improvising drum quartet will explore the possibilities presented by a multi-percussion line up. The quartet brings together four drummers with wildly different approaches, each bringing a range of conflicting influences and compositional and conceptual approaches to the group, resulting in a performance that will combine high improvisation with a modicum of compositional sensibility.
Stuart Brown, Tom Bancroft, Fritz Welch, Chris Wallace
Psykick Dancehall : Discussion / Talk
Psykick Dancehall is a journal / record label run by Hannah Ellul and Ben Knight. Throughout October they will be working in a Creative Lab residency at the CCA. For the festival they will implement an open discussion based around their own work as developed during their residency and in a critical engagement with the orchestra.
Gliondar Ensemble / GIO / Emma Roche
How will a 20 piece improvising ensemble respond to a 5 piece chamber group playing a composed piece? The piece will be built around experiments conducted into forms of response and relation with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.
Made up of Glasgow and Dublin-based freelance musicians, the Gliondar Ensemble is a classical wind quintet: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and French Horn. The members of the Gliondar Ensemble have appeared with groups such as the RSNO, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Ensemble, Blazing Fiddles and Iain Anderson from Jethro Tull. Their repertoire consists in large part of music from the 20th and 21st Century with additions from the classical and romantic repertoire, some original and some orchestrated for this ensemble of instruments.
Muris With Lumps & Peter Nicholson : Michelada Miseries
Have you ever wondered why certain musicians choose to work with each other? For status? For enjoyment? Perhaps because they seek to gain credibility by association. We would like to attain a disreputable status by association with each other. We would like to negate any value to our performance, to bore you perhaps, or to lead you to question whether your time has been wasted (every second thought you have during our performance will be of the grave). Composition by F. Welch, N. Davidson, L. Rozite.
Fritz Welch – percussion (Human Sacrifice – solo, Lambs Gambol, Peeesseye, With Lumps, Brittle Hammar Trio etc) has come to Glasgow from Texas via Brooklyn and produces arch metallic gamelan putrescence in abundance. Peter Nicholson – cellist. Ravi Shankar and Faust have both drawn on his falsetto heart strings and sea shanty brutality. Charming. Liene Rozite - is founder member of the Cr:acc ensemble, has played in the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra for two years and is in a conceptual composition / improvisation duo called Muris with Neil Davidson. Neil Davidson – guitar player. Writes sometimes, plays in With Lumps, Muris, Age of Wire and String and GIO. Occasional theatre work in Norway and Portugal.
Improvised encounters between guest players and members of the orchestra
We value very highly the fragility, strange weight and intimacy that emerges from small scale improvised encounters. There will be three or four of these, short in duration, broad in range and articulation.
Andreas Gogol is an experimental musician and filmmaker based in Berlin / Germany. He was a member of “StattWerke”, an experimental workshop between 1996 – 2003 - has worked with Telemach Wiesinger (16mm Film & Live Sound), C-Schulz, Guido Möbius etc. and also played many concerts as a Solo-Artist.
Drum Quartet: Stuart Brown/Tom Bancroft/Chris Wallace/ Fritz Welch
This first performance by a newly formed improvising drum quartet will explore the possibilities presented by a multi-percussion line up. The quartet brings together four drummers with wildly different approaches, each bringing a range of conflicting influences and compositional and conceptual approaches to the group, resulting in a performance that will combine high improvisation with a modicum of compositional sensibility.
Stuart Brown, Tom Bancroft, Fritz Welch, Chris Wallace
Psykick Dancehall : Discussion / Talk
Psykick Dancehall is a journal / record label run by Hannah Ellul and Ben Knight. Throughout October they will be working in a Creative Lab residency at the CCA. For the festival they will implement an open discussion based around their own work as developed during their residency and in a critical engagement with the orchestra.
Gliondar Ensemble / GIO / Emma Roche
How will a 20 piece improvising ensemble respond to a 5 piece chamber group playing a composed piece? The piece will be built around experiments conducted into forms of response and relation with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.
Made up of Glasgow and Dublin-based freelance musicians, the Gliondar Ensemble is a classical wind quintet: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon and French Horn. The members of the Gliondar Ensemble have appeared with groups such as the RSNO, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Ensemble, Blazing Fiddles and Iain Anderson from Jethro Tull. Their repertoire consists in large part of music from the 20th and 21st Century with additions from the classical and romantic repertoire, some original and some orchestrated for this ensemble of instruments.
Muris With Lumps & Peter Nicholson : Michelada Miseries
Have you ever wondered why certain musicians choose to work with each other? For status? For enjoyment? Perhaps because they seek to gain credibility by association. We would like to attain a disreputable status by association with each other. We would like to negate any value to our performance, to bore you perhaps, or to lead you to question whether your time has been wasted (every second thought you have during our performance will be of the grave). Composition by F. Welch, N. Davidson, L. Rozite.
Fritz Welch – percussion (Human Sacrifice – solo, Lambs Gambol, Peeesseye, With Lumps, Brittle Hammar Trio etc) has come to Glasgow from Texas via Brooklyn and produces arch metallic gamelan putrescence in abundance. Peter Nicholson – cellist. Ravi Shankar and Faust have both drawn on his falsetto heart strings and sea shanty brutality. Charming. Liene Rozite - is founder member of the Cr:acc ensemble, has played in the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra for two years and is in a conceptual composition / improvisation duo called Muris with Neil Davidson. Neil Davidson – guitar player. Writes sometimes, plays in With Lumps, Muris, Age of Wire and String and GIO. Occasional theatre work in Norway and Portugal.
Improvised encounters between guest players and members of the orchestra
We value very highly the fragility, strange weight and intimacy that emerges from small scale improvised encounters. There will be three or four of these, short in duration, broad in range and articulation.
Jan Bang / GIO : Jan Bang sampling and remixing live amidst the orchestra
Jan Bang works with the concept of live remix, improvising with electronics alongside more conventional instruments and performers. In 2005 he launched, together with Erik Honoré, the Punkt Festival where live remix works within the framework of overlapping concerts; one being the original, the other the remix. Bang’s recent live performances have included the Sidney Opera House as part of Brian Eno´s festival and playing at the Carnegie Hall in NYC and Royce Hall, LA. Bang was born and grew up in Kristiansand, nurtured by the legacy of his father’s vast record collection, his mother’s piano playing and the sounds of swallows in the family garden.
