Thursday 6 April 2023, 8pm
“A” Trio is the oldest Lebanese free improv group. It was formed in 2002 by Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Sharif Sehnaoui (acoustic guitar), and Raed Yassin (double bass), initially for a single concert at the second edition of the experimental music festival Irtijal. After this concert the three musicians went on to record the first free jazz album to be produced in the arab world (A – La Cédéthèque, 2003). Their music later moved away from its jazz roots towards a more textural approach, relying strongly on prepared & extended techniques for a heavy diversion of their respective instruments. After working together in trio and various other contexts for many years, Kerbaj, Sehnaoui and Yassin reached a characteristic sound that has been fondly described as “textural swing.”
Celebrating their 20th anniversary as a group, the “A” Trio finally come to the UK for Counterflows 2023.
Angharad Davies is a Welsh violinist based in London working with free-improvisation, compositions and performance. Her approach to sound involves attentive listening and exploring beyond the sonic confines of her instrument, her classical training and performance expectation.
angharaddavies.com
Billy Steiger is an artist working across performance, recording, drawing, and printmaking. This work often takes systems of reproduction, transmission and mediation as both material and subject.
Active/upcoming solo projects include:
- a proposed (re)history of technology, using the vibrating string as framing mechanism.
- an album of modified pipe organ recordings, to be released by OtoRoku in 2027.
- an ongoing investigation into audio compression algorithms and the artefacts and loss inherent to digital/analogue boundary states.
Active group projects include:
- O Yama O (w/ Keiko Yamamoto, Rie Nakajima, Marie Roux)
- X-Ray Hex Tet (w/ Paul Abbott, Edward George, Crystabel Riley, Pat Thomas, Seymour Wright)
- Portraits (w/ Daniel Blumberg, Seymour Wright)
Completed(?) solo projects include:
- composing and recording the score for Stacy Martin's short film Amaretti
- Box (for EKM) for piano and string quartet, premiered by Apartment House in 2024
- Loud Object, a 2023 violin record.
https://billysteiger.bandcamp.com/
