Urs Leimgruber / Roger Turner
Alan Tomlinson (solo)
Urs Leimgruber / Evan Parker

URS LEIMGRUBER / saxophone

Urs Leimgruber is a key member of the European scene of contemporary improvised music. He specializes in solo concerts and performs regularly with the Trio Leimgruber-Demierre-Phillips and with Quartet Noir (with Marilyn Crispell, Joëlle Léandre, Fritz Hauser) in Europe, Canada, USA, Japan, and Cuba. His countless collaborations have resulted in concerts and recordings with Fred Frith, Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Günter Christmann, Sunny Murray, Thomas Lehn, Günter Müller, John Butcher, Axel Dörner, Günter Christmann and many others. He also has been engaged for New Music projects with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet and the ARTE Saxophone Quartet. During the 1970s, he was the co-founder of the Electricjazz-Freemusic group, OM.



ROGER TURNER / percussion

Roger Turner been working as an improvising percussionist since the early 1970’s : solo work, collaborations with experimental rock musics & open - form song, extensive work with dance, film and visual artists, workshop formations and the hands-on politics of independent record labels and work situations, plus involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles have all contributed to this process. Has collaborated with many of the finest european & international musicians from Annette Peacock to Phil Minton, Cecil Taylor to Keith Rowe ; tours & concerts have been throughout Europe, Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, China and Japan.



EVAN PARKER / saxophones

"ln The Human Province, Elias Canetti writes "lt is not enough to think, one also has to breathe. Dangerous are the thinkers who have not breathed enough." In Evan Parker's music, thought and breath are continuous, each the instrument and measure of the other." Stuart Broomer, Coda 1995

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.

ALAN TOMLINSON

Alan Tomlinson is a trombonist whose work spans a broad musical spectrum, from improvisation and jazz to classical and commercial music. An active figure in the European improvised music scene since early 80s, Alan has performed as a soloist at numerous concerts, festivals and for broadcast here and abroad, including the USA and Russia. Alan has worked with Ballet Rambert, Cockpit Theatre Music Ensemble and was a member of Barry Guy’s London Jazz Composers Orchestra. He regularly performs with his own trio (Dave Tucker, guitar and Phil Marks, drums) and forms an occasional duo with Romanian poet Virgil Mihaiu. As a member of contemporary music groups Sounds Positive and the London New Wind Ensemble, Alan has given numerous first performances and many composers have written new work for him.




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