We're pleased to extend our trumpet series with a two-day residency for the brilliant German trumpeter Axel Dörner.

Dörner is one of the most distinctive and versatile voices in European creative music, his playing distinguished by its great concentration and focus, perfect timing, sensitivity to group dynamics, and a textural range that seems to defy physical possibility, from solid sheets of white noise to impeccably articulated pure tones, massively elongated slurs to sharp percussive shocks.

His range of collaborations is also impressive, from steely modernism with Keith Rowe to playing the complete works of Thelonius Monk with Alexander von Schlippenbach, small groups such as The Contest of Pleasures (with John Butcher and Xavier Charles) and Toot (with Thomas Lehn and Phil Minton), larger projects such as Phosphor and Otomo Yoshihde's New Jazz Orchestra, and duos with Angharad Davies, Mattin, Diego Chamy and Fred Lonberg-Holm.

DAY ONE

DUO WITH ANGHARAD DAVIES

Angharad Davies is a quietly powerful presence in London's improvised and experimental music scene, whose work spans both improvised and composed musics. She has developed a specific approach to the violin, extending the sound possibilities of the instrument by attaching and applying objects to the strings or by sounding unexpected parts of the instrument's body. She is dedicated to exploring and expanding sound production on the violin. Her duo CD with Dörner (A.D. on Another Timbre) was praised for its 'backbone' and beauty (Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes) and the way that 'it retains the atmosphere of surprise – of magic – that great improvisation is still so uniquely capable of providing' (David Grundy, Stream of Expression).

QUARTET WITH JOHN BUTCHER, STEVE BERESFORD, JOHN EDWARDS

An expansive and unpredictable quartet with great potential for dynamic, textual and generic extremes. John Butcher's reshaping of the saxophone, attention to sonic detail, and ability to sustain creative tension makes him an ideal partner for Dörner, and the two have worked together often over the last decade. Steve Beresford's anarchic and joyously iconoclastic approach to both piano and electronics might seem at odds with Dörner's more apparently sober demeanour, but they've played together often and have are perfect foils for each other. John Edwards' explosive bass playing anchors the quartet, bringing his energy and oblique structural strategies into play, as well as his explorations of the sonic potential of all areas of his instrument.

DAY TWO

DUO WITH MARK SANDERS

A long overdue reunion for this brilliant duo. Dörner and Sanders are two of the most sensitive and imaginative players in improvised music and the combination of their extended sonic palettes and unique senses of space and time promises to be a fascinating encounter.

DUO WITH PHIL MINTON

Phil Minton used to play the trumpet before deciding to focus on voice alone, and this duo offers a thorough exploration of the musical powers of breath, whether funneled through lengths of brass tubing or direct from the mouth. The stillness of Dörner's demeanour contrasts with Minton's more animated approach to produce a creative tension that will play itself out in sighs, whispers, shouts, murmurs, hisses, gurgles, screeches and more . . .





See more Axel Dörner videos on Youtube