Monday 7 December 2015, 8pm
Fantastic to welcome pioneering improvising pianist and composer, Fred Van Hove, to OTO for the first time. Part of the first wave of European free-improvisers, Van Hove's performances alongside Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink in the 60's and 70's (including on Brötzmann's landmark Machine Gun) set the bar for later generations, and since then he has performed with a huge array of musicians, from Lol Coxhill to Evan Parker to Joelle Leandre and Steve Lacey to name just a tiny fraction. Tonight he's joined by the never-less-than-captivating drummer and percussionist, Roger Turner, for what promises to be an evening of mesmeric interplay.
Fred Van Hove is a Belgian jazz musician and a pioneer of European free jazz. He is a pianist, accordionist, church organist, and carillonist, an improviser and a composer. He is known for his work in the 1960s and 70s with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer Han Bennink and for his subsequent work in various duos and as a solo artist.
Van Hove studied musical theory, harmony and piano in Belgium. He began an association with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann in 1966, playing on his early quartet and sextet recordings including 1968's Machine Gun album, and then as part of a trio with Brötzmann and drummer Han Bennink. Van Hove has since played in a number of duos, notably with saxophonists Steve Lacy and Lol Coxhill and with trombonists Albert Mangelsdorff and Vinko Globokar. He has composed for film and theatre and taught local musicians in Berlin. He has held workshops in Germany, France, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and has held studios at the University of Lille III. Van Hove has collaborated with a number of his fellow Belgian musicians and in 1996 he was given the title of Cultural Ambassador of Flanders by the Belgian government.
Over decades Roger Turner has brought the renowned volcanic power and finely-honed precision of his drum work to ensembles that have forged substantial connections with musicians both sides of the Atlantic and more recently from Japan. In addition to pioneering an acoustic percussive language that can run in tandem with approaches to contemporary electronic instruments, he has worked extensively in the microscopic laboratory of the acoustic duo situation where he acquired a highly developed sense of detail and of dynamic control. One of that select group of world-class players who have collectively redefined the language of contemporary percussion, in Turner's hands minute inflections of tension can shape the group's musical direction and galvanise a new level of audience experience.
