Olie Brice

Olie Brice is a double bassist, improviser and composer. Raised in London and Jerusalem, he now lives by the sea in Hastings.

Olie Brice leads and composes for two groups, a trio (with Tom Challenger & Will Glaser) and an Octet (with Alex Bonney, Kim Macari, Jason Yarde, Rachel Musson, George Crowley, Cath Roberts & Johnny Hunter). Both of these groups were featured on the critically acclaimed double album ‘Fire Hills’. Previously Brice lead a quintet – “one of the most interesting and satisfying bands on the current UK scene” – which released two albums, ‘Immune to Clockwork’ and ‘Day After Day’. He has also composed a piece for improvising string quartet, ‘From the Mouths of Lions’, which will be released in 2024.

Brice is a committed free improviser, who has performed, toured and recorded with many of the leading names in the music. Frequent collaborators include Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Rachel Musson, Tobias Delius, Cath Roberts and Luis Vicente, and he has also appeared with the likes of Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, John Butcher, Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Vandermark, Eddie Prevost and Louis Moholo. He is part of several ongoing improvising ensembles including Somersaults (with Tobias Delius & Mark Sanders) and The Acrylic Rib (with Albert Cirera & Nicolas Field).

Brice is also in demand as a bass player in creative ensembles led by many artists, including Dee Byrne’s Outlines and Out Front (Nick Malcolm’s quintet playing the music of Andrew Hill and Booker Little). He regularly performs at venues and festivals across Europe. Brice has been the recipient of Arts Council England funding multiple times and in 2021 received a composition commission from Jazz South.

“Brice makes the entire body of his bass sing. He has the ability to deliver a fractal line that is as purposeful as any by the great jazz bassists, but to do so within an entirely abstract setting” - Brian Morton, Point of Departure

Tom Challenger

Tom Challenger is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in London. Having curated and composed for a variety of ensembles over the years, his current work explores improvisation in various guises, alongside developing composed works for various lineups. He has collaborated with the likes of Evan Parker, Charles Hayward, Ed Bennett, Byron Wallen, Kit Downes and Alex Hawkins, in addition to leading his own ensembles, such as Brass Mask. Recordings of improvised and written works are available on his label Sche-ima Recordings.

Jason Yarde

Saxophonist Jason Yarde has already been a veteran of the leader's bands for some two decades. He is himself one of the most sought-after musicians of his generation, and has been a member of groups led by Andrew Hill and Jack DeJohnette, amonst many others. He is also a renowned composer, having been widely commissioned (including by the London Symphony Orchestra). 

Rachel Musson

RACHEL MUSSON is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in the UK. She has spent the last decade immersed in improvised music, and has also gradually been introducing composed elements into her work, drawing on text, field recordings and processing sounds. She is involved with a variety of improvisation projects, and works regularly with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward and Alex Hawkins, amongst others. She features on several releases, including a nonet featuring her composition 'I Went This Way' (577 Records), two with Shifa, feat. Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders, (577 Records), one with Mark Sanders and John Edwards (Two Rivers Records), trio with Liam Noble and Mark Sanders (Babel), and Corey Mwamba (Takuroku).

Cath Roberts

Cath Roberts (they/them) is an improviser, composer and artist based in Hastings, UK, whose work combines acoustic and electronic improvised music, experimental composition, and DIY publishing practices.

On saxophones Cath has collaborated with a wide range of artists and ensembles internationally for over a decade. Their band Sloth Racket has released five studio albums, touring widely and ‘lurching between riff and abstraction’ (The Wire) since forming in 2015. Other recent exploits include playing with Chris Corsano as part of his 2022 Cafe Oto residency, and being one of two UK artists (with Mandhira De Saram) commissioned by Australian Art Orchestra to co-create and perform Fresh Water – Salt Water in Melbourne and Huddersfield (a hcmf// and AAO co-commission, also in 2022).

Cath works with live electronics (SOMA Lyra-8 synthesiser, samplers, and small tabletop machines) in ongoing collaborations with Kate Carr (as Quartz Sand), Graham Dunning (as Grid & Robots) and Tullis Rennie (as Composite Mashworks). Be unafraid to open things up, a solo improvisation on tabletop electronics, was released on Fractal Meat Cuts in 2022. Cath’s sampler-based solo collage set appeared at hcmf// 2024, Sonics Hastings 2025 and Sacrum Profanum (Kraków) 2025.

In 2021 Cath was commissioned by hcmf// to create And then the next thing you know, a cross-artform installation/performance piece involving a giant, hanging, fragmented graphic score, elements of which are being integrated into a new audio-visual collaboration with Tullis Rennie. In 2024 Cath established the DIY small press Ink-Paper-Sound, and they co-run the Luminous label and the BRÅK concert series.

https://cathrobots.co.uk/

Photo by Adriana Kochanska

Kim Macari

Originally from Fife, Scotland and now based in London, Kim Macari is a musician and composer immersed in the jazz and improvised music scene. Whether as a performer, teacher or a producer, her passion lies in the strength of improvised music as a means of expression and a form of empowerment and freedom.

Announced as one of 8 recipients of the Take Five initiative run by Serious for 2017, she is recognised for her work both as a performer and as an industry professional. She is currently Chair of Jazz from Scotland, on the teaching faculty of the National Youth Jazz Collective and a core team member of the Jazz100 project.

https://kimmacari.wordpress.com/

Alex Bonney

Alex Bonney is a trumpeter, electronic musician and recording/mix engineer and producer based in London.

He leads the Alex Bonney Quartet, is a member of Leverton Fox, light.box, BABs, Golden Age of Steam, The Olie Brice Quintet, and performs solo with electronics and in a variety of other improvising ensembles. When not performing Alex works with a variety of artists producing and engineering music for leading jazz, improvised and contemporary music record labels including ECM.

Johnny Hunter

Johnny Hunter is a northern UK-based drummer and composer who comes from a background of both the Avant-Garde and the more mainstream Jazz. His own “chordless” quartet, set up to explore the freedom and limitations of having no chordal instrument, has been recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and has performed across the country in notable venues such as London’s Ronnie Scott’s, the Manchester Jazz Festival, Birmingham Jazzlines at Symphony Hall, Liverpool International Jazz Festival, among many others. He also leads the piano trio Fragments, originally a workshop band formed to research and develop new approaches to improvising and composing for improvisers.

In 2018, he took part in Sound and Music’s New Voices programme which allowed him to compose an extended piece for a large ensemble of improvising musicians. He has also written works for various other ensembles, including Pale Blue Dot, a piece for string quartet with tenor sax and drums; Now It Can Be Told, which brings his Post-rock influences to the forefront and investigates the use of electronics in Jazz; Backlash, a piece for improvising “marching band” with the line-up of piccolo, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, accordion and percussion. Outside of his own music, Johnny performs in many other groups including Cath Roberts’s Sloth Racket, John Pope Quintet, Nat Birchall, Engine Room Favourites, and Swiss-UK collaboration MoonMot.

https://www.johnnyhuntermusic.com

Will Glaser

Will was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. In 2010 he moved to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Drawing eclectically on the Jazz tradition, Improvised music, Rock, Noise, Folk, Blues, Experimental and Electronic music - Will leads his own projects and is a highly in demand drummer on the British Jazz and Experimental music scenes.

He is a member of avant-rock bands Snack Family & World Sanguine Report and has performed with a wide range of artists including; James Allsopp, Andrew Plummer, Sly and the Family Drone, Ruth Goller, Alex Bonney, Stef Kett, Tom Challenger, Olie Brice, George Crowley, Dave De Rose, Liam Noble, Soweto Kinch, Dame Cleo Laine, Stan Sulzmann, Kit Downes, Ben Van Gelder, Nikki Iles, Iain Ballamy, Dinosaur, Alex Garnett, Josephine Davies, Yazz Ahmed, Henry Lowther, Babelfish, Rick Simpson, Sam Eastmond & Riley Stone-Lonergan.

In September 2018 Will started teaching on the Guildhall School of Music's Jazz course.