1–2 November 2026
One of the most inventive and eclectic figures in contemporary music, guitarist and composer Fred Frith returns to OTO for a two-night residency featuring solo performance plus collaborations with Tim Hodgkinson, Liz Allbee and Verena Marisa.
“Few contemporary musicians have explored as many different – and frequently overlapping – genres as Fred Frith: traditional folk, indie rock, free improv, chamber composition, po-mo retro, graphic scores, and several…that may not have a name yet.” – Art Lange, Point of Departure
Frith's work has ranged from ground-breaking avant-garde rock with Henry Cow and Art Bears to extended compositions for choirs, orchestras and saxophone quartets and collaborations with figures such as Mike Patton, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Ikue Mori and Derek Bailey. His highly individual approach to the guitar and use of extended and unorthodox techniques give his music a unique and at times disorienting sense of texture and space.
Frith's musicial journey started when he formed Henry Cow with Tim Hodgkinson in 1968, a legendary group that expanded the parameters of rock music to include complex compositional forms as well as improvised elements.
After moving to New York in 1979, Frith was a key figure in the downtown experimental music scene, his collaborations with Zorn, Laswell, Mori and others helping form an important new musical vernacular in which elements of rock, contempary composition, noise and improvisation overlapped and intertwined.
Since 1999 Frith has been Professor of Composition at Mills University, California. Recent projects have included duos with Anthony Braxton and Evelyn Glennie, collaborations with the Arte Quartett and choreographer Donna Uchizono, and numerous festival appearances in Europe and America.
“A masterful sound colorist, Frith is in no way subject to analyses of has artistic legitimacy - (he) redefines the possible uses of the guitar and makes traditional discourse irrelevant” – L.A. Herald Examiner (USA)
With compositions featured at international festivals such as Tectonics, Huddersfield, Spectrum XXI, Nordlyd, and Ars Musica, and two sets of works for ensemble out on the Mode label, TIM HODGKINSON also has a powerful commitment to intense and highly energised performance practice. For over fifty years he has placed himself in a series of definitive projects, whether as cofounder of the seminal group Henry Cow, as saxophonist with influential avant-metal band God, or as bass clarinet soloist in the spectral compositions of Iancu Dumitrescu. His lap steel guitar playing remains completely uncategorisable, bringing subdued and not so subdued echoes of rock musics and other ethnicities.
http://www.timhodgkinson.co.uk/
Liz Allbee is a composer-performer and improviser who works with the imaginarchic potential of sonic material. She performs most often on self-designed quadraphonic trumpet, electronics, trumpet and voice. Her work encompasses electro-acoustic composition, spatialization, improvisational strategies and instrument creation, with an ear towards embodiment and extension. She has performed at venues & festivals including wien modern, maerzmusik, ctm, huddersfield cont. music festival, donaueschingen, darmstadt, berlin jazzfest, berghain, schirn kunsthalle, goethe institute.
"Many lesser oddball talents make the proud boast that they will invite you into their strange mental world and amaze you thereby. Allbee not only makes good on the promise, but she refuses to let you out again afterwards. I hereby dub her the Circe of the avant-garde music world, and I have now been turned into a pig…………” sound projector, london 2010
Verena Marisa is a German-Brazilian composer, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist. She is an expert performer of the theremin – an early electronic instrument, which is played without touching it.
As performer Verena appears at festivals in the experimental realm, including Jazz and New Music. She is the first thereminist to compose an entire solo concert program for this unique instrument, and continues to present it throughout Europe.
She has collaborated fruitfully with lyricist Nora Gomringer, recipient of the prestigious Bachmann Prize.
As composer she has premiered orchestral works, such as NEW ERA at Munich Philharmonic Hall and MORPHOLOGY at Tonhalle in Munich with great critical acclaim ("one of the best new works", NMZ).
Verena has further composed music for feature films, working with directors Rudi Gaul, Franziska Schlotterer and Golden Globe-nominee Max Färberböck.
In theater she has composed for Neuköllner Oper in Berlin and Schauspiel Frankfurt, with directors Sommer Ulrickson and Ersan Mondtag.
