Straight from Mills College, California : A Day of Improvisation. Workshop and Concert. Featuring Charity Chan (Montreal), Scott Thomson (Toronto) and A Revolucionary Cyborg Wedding Man (Victoria).
Thu. December 14th 2006
@ the fifty fifty arts collective workshop by donation / show $7
9:30 doors at 8:30Straight from Mills College : A Day of Improvisation. Workshop and Concert. Featuring Charity Chan (Montreal), Scott Thomson (Toronto), Noah Phillips (California).
plus: A Revolucionary Cyborg Wedding Man (Victoria).
Workshop: by donation. 5pm – 7pm.
Show: $7 ; 9:30pm.
Workshop
Prior to their concert, three visiting musicians, fronted by Scott Thomson and Charity Chan, are presenting an afternoon round-table discussion and workshop on contemporary improvisation. The discussion will focus on the practice of contemporary improvisation, specifically concerning ideas of value and pedagogy. We invite musicians of all backgrounds and levels to participate in an hour long open improvisation. The workshop will feature both large group conduction and small group improvisations. Bring your own instrument and a willingness to “.... play with your friends!” (Joelle Leandre).
Opening the evening performance is A Revolcionary Cyborg Wedding Man. This vocal driven improv project is the work of local artist, Sharka, a regular player of Imps, currently Victoria’s most notable collective improvisation group. The band recently played to a packed house at the Media Club in Vancouver, opening for the legendary, No Neck Blues Band.
Charity Chan and Scott Thomson are both accomplished improvisational players who have an impressive dossier. Charity Chan is currently working on a MFA at Mills College in contemporary improvisation. Her primary instructors are Fred Frith and Jeollo Leandre. She has participated in workshops with Jean Derome, The Sun Ra Arkestra and Joe McPhee. Charity's live performances focus on the evocation of alternative timbres from the piano and the combination of these sounds with more traditional performance techniques. Her improvisations are also informed by the immediacy of physical gesture in live performance.
Trombonist Scott Thomson is a key member of a new generation of improvising musicians living and working in Toronto. He is a self-taught instrumentalist with a broad, colourful tone and a vast instrumental vocabulary that is indebted to, among other sources, the great Ellingtonian trombonists, American avant-traditionalist Roswell Rudd, classic European free improvising trombonists like Paul Rutherford and Günter Christmann, and wind traditions from around the world. Scott is a founding board member with the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) and through the ongoing Interface Series – in which renowned visiting improvisers work with Toronto musicians during a three-night concert program – he has the chance to meet and work with numerous world-class musicians: New York saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee, Montréal saxophonist and flutist Jean Derome, Amsterdam bassist Wilbert de Joode, Köln clarinetist and saxophonist Frank Gratkowski, Vancouver drummer Dylan Van der Schyff, and many more.
plus: A Revolucionary Cyborg Wedding Man (Victoria).
Workshop: by donation. 5pm – 7pm.
Show: $7 ; 9:30pm.
Workshop
Prior to their concert, three visiting musicians, fronted by Scott Thomson and Charity Chan, are presenting an afternoon round-table discussion and workshop on contemporary improvisation. The discussion will focus on the practice of contemporary improvisation, specifically concerning ideas of value and pedagogy. We invite musicians of all backgrounds and levels to participate in an hour long open improvisation. The workshop will feature both large group conduction and small group improvisations. Bring your own instrument and a willingness to “.... play with your friends!” (Joelle Leandre).
Opening the evening performance is A Revolcionary Cyborg Wedding Man. This vocal driven improv project is the work of local artist, Sharka, a regular player of Imps, currently Victoria’s most notable collective improvisation group. The band recently played to a packed house at the Media Club in Vancouver, opening for the legendary, No Neck Blues Band.
Charity Chan and Scott Thomson are both accomplished improvisational players who have an impressive dossier. Charity Chan is currently working on a MFA at Mills College in contemporary improvisation. Her primary instructors are Fred Frith and Jeollo Leandre. She has participated in workshops with Jean Derome, The Sun Ra Arkestra and Joe McPhee. Charity's live performances focus on the evocation of alternative timbres from the piano and the combination of these sounds with more traditional performance techniques. Her improvisations are also informed by the immediacy of physical gesture in live performance.
Trombonist Scott Thomson is a key member of a new generation of improvising musicians living and working in Toronto. He is a self-taught instrumentalist with a broad, colourful tone and a vast instrumental vocabulary that is indebted to, among other sources, the great Ellingtonian trombonists, American avant-traditionalist Roswell Rudd, classic European free improvising trombonists like Paul Rutherford and Günter Christmann, and wind traditions from around the world. Scott is a founding board member with the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) and through the ongoing Interface Series – in which renowned visiting improvisers work with Toronto musicians during a three-night concert program – he has the chance to meet and work with numerous world-class musicians: New York saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee, Montréal saxophonist and flutist Jean Derome, Amsterdam bassist Wilbert de Joode, Köln clarinetist and saxophonist Frank Gratkowski, Vancouver drummer Dylan Van der Schyff, and many more.
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