Friday 21 October 2022, 8pm
Delighted to host a three-day residency with legendary vocal improvisor, dancer, and performer, Maggie Nicols, ahead of the release of her first first physical solo release, Are You Ready?, on our own OTOroku label.
While she might be best known as an improviser, most notably in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of 'Les Diaboliques', Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. This specially curated residency brings together a series of projects and collaborations across three themed days, consisting of longstanding collaborations and new projects spanning her career up until this very day.
POETRY, SONG AND SOUND – PROGRAMME:
- Poetry, Song and Sound band: Julia Doyle (double bass), Steve Noble (percussion), Frances Knight (piano), Shirley Hall, Nick Lubran, Florence Uniacke, Vicky Scrivener, Maggie Nicols
- Pat Thomas / Thurston Moore (duo)
- Sweet'n's'ours: Julie Tippetts / Maggie Nicols (duo)
Maggie Nicols joined London's legendary Spontaneous Music Ensemble in 1968 as a free improvisation vocalist. She then became active running voice workshops with an involvement in local experimental theatre. She later joined the group Centipede, led by Keith Tippets and in 1977, with musician/composer Lindsay Cooper, formed the remarkable Feminist Improvising Group. She continues performing and recording challenging and beautiful work, in music and theatre, either in collaborations with a range of artists (Irene Schweitzer, Joelle Leandre, Ken Hyder, Caroline Kraabel) as well as solo.
"I volunteered for the bass desk (from the depths of the second violins) in Bucks County Youth Orchestra in 1969, and have still not stopped loving that sound. The double bass comes alive when played, and makes the perfect dance partner. I have played across many genres and especially enjoy playing music for dancing (I do like a groove), as well as the joy of spontaneous free improvisation. The peak joy in making music for me is “clicking” as a unit with other artists, and flowing along with that."
Pat Thomas studied classical piano from aged 8 and started playing Jazz from the age of 16. He has since gone on to develop an utterly unique style - embracing improvisation, jazz and new music. He has played with Derek Bailey in Company Week (1990/91) and in the trio AND (with Noble) – with Tony Oxley’s Quartet and Celebration Orchestra and in Duo with Lol Coxhill.
"Sartorially shabby as Thomas may be, and on first impression even rather stolid, he has a somewhat imperious charisma that’s immediately amplified when he starts to play. Unlike other pianists whose virtuosity seems to be racing ahead of their thought processes Thomas always seems supremely in command of his gift, and his playing, no matter how free and ready to tangle with abstraction, always carries a charge of authoritative exactitude." - The Jazzmann
Thurston Moore started Sonic Youth in 1980 and has been at the forefront of the alternative rock scene since that particular sobriquet was first used to signify any music that challenged and defied the mainstream standard. With Sonic Youth, Moore turned on an entire generation to the value of experimentation in rock n roll – from its inspiration on a nascent Nirvana, to Sonic Youth’s own Daydream Nation album being chosen by the US Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Thurston records and performs in a cavalcade of disciplines ranging from free improvisation to acoustic composition to black/white metal/noise disruption. He has worked with Yoko Ono, John Zorn, David Toop, Cecil Taylor, Faust, Glenn Branca and many others. His residency at the Louvre in Paris included collaborations with Irmin Schmidt of CAN. Alongside his various activities in the musical world, he is involved with publishing and poetry, and teaches writing at Naropa University, Boulder CO, a school founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman in 1974. Thurston also teaches music at The Rhythmic Music Conservatory (Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium) in Copenhagen. Presently he performs and records solo, with various ensembles and in his own band, The Thurston Moore Group.
Julie Tippetts is one of the foremost European vocalists in the field of contemporary jazz and improvised music. Her recording and performing career has taken her from the early years of soul/jazz/R&B with Brian Auger in the 1960s to working with some of the world’s leading improvising musicians today. Julie’s extended use of the voice as an instrument has led her to develop a vocal technique beyond the boundaries of a conventional singer. Her career highs are endless; she has explored the range of vocal possibilities in groups such as the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Centipede, Ovary Lodge, Voice and the Ark, Mujician and The Georgian Ensemble, The Dedication Orchestra, Keith Tippett’s Tapestry and Couple in Spirit.
