Sunday 8 February 2026, 2–5pm
An afternoon at OTO with four duos, playing / doing the same instrument or thing. Some first time duos, some a long time coming.
Line-up:
Evan Parker & Seymour Wright ( two saxophones)
Jess Hickie & Florence Uniacke ( two voices)
Billy Steiger & Angharad Davies (two violins)
Ciaran Mackle & Conal Blake (two dads)
"If you've ever been tempted by free improvisation, Parker is your gateway drug." - Stewart Lee
Evan Parker has been a consistently innovative presence in British free music since the 1960s. Parker played with John Stevens in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, experimenting with new kinds of group improvisation and held a long-standing partnership with guitarist Derek Bailey. The two formed the Music Improvisation Company and later Incus Records. He also has tight associations with European free improvisations - playing on Peter Brötzmann's legendary 'Machine Gun' session (1968), with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Paul Lovens (A trio that continues to this day), Globe Unity Orchestra, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO).
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.
Seymour Wright is a saxophonist. His work is about the creative, situated friction of learning, ideas, people and the saxophone – music, history and technique – actual and potential.
Seymour's solo music is documented on three widely-acclaimed collections - Seymour Wright of Derby (2008), Seymour Writes Back (2015) and Is This Right? (2017).
Current projects include: @xcrswx with Crystabel Riley; abaria with Ute Kanngiesser; [Ahmed] with Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Pat Thomas; GUO with Daniel Blumberg; XT with Paul Abbott; The Creaking Breeze Ensemble; a trans-atlantic duet with Andy Guthrie, and, with Jean-luc Guionnet a project addressing an imaginary lacunae in Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne.
@xcrswx
Conal Blake is a musician from Glasgow. He currently plays solo and improvises with Li Song and Regan Bowering, using electronics and percussion. He also runs the Feedback Moves label.
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 was born in Howth on the 16th December, 1986. Now he plays the violin.
“Then he sat down by a pond and began to play a tune. As he played, the most extraordinary thing happened. One by one the fish in the pond began to jump out and fly about in the air. And what is more, they were all different colours and they were singing to the music.”
Patrick, Quentin Blake.
https://billysteiger.bandcamp.com/
Ciaran Mackle is an Irish musician based in London since 2012. His practice spans improvisation, electroacoustics, and song, often navigating the intersections between traditional forms and experimental sound. His work is grounded in a tactile engagement with texture, phrasing, and the performative possibilities of sound.
Long-term collaborations include the micro feral concrète of Ashcircle (active since 2014), and Breathing Heavy, a saxophone and sampler duo with Sam Andreae. From 2019 to 2023, he curated the Cliff-Edge series at Hundred Years Gallery, fostering a space for avant-garde and improvised music in East London.
Recent work has drawn heavily from Irish and English folk traditions, exploring melodic phrasing within abstract structures. His debut solo album, sitting still for a living, released under his own name, reimagines traditional song through a lens of experimental performance and long-form sampler composition.
florence uniacke is a poet living in london. recent publications include suiving, ma bibliotheque, 2020. Vocable, crater press, 2023. Speeches of mary, veer 2 , 2024 and in frame/drum song coming with veer 2 later this year.
Jess h-k sings and lives and writes in London. mostly flirts with misdirection.
H-k sings in band Still House Plants with best mates David Kennedy and Finlay Clark.
