Sunday 11 December 2016, 8pm
Great to host the first OTO performance of an improvising quartet consisting of Lisa Ullén, Matilda Rolfsson, Maggie Nicols and John Edwards – four singular artists who craft myriad sonic forms from piano, voice, percussion and bass.
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.
Matilda Rolfsson is a Swedish percussionist and improviser living in Trondheim. She is educated at the Institute for Music NTNU and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, London and has since been active as a freelance musician internationally, solo as well as together with dancers and musicians. Performers with whom she repeatedly associates through collaborations are pianist Lisa Ullén, vocalist Maggie Nicols; (Trio Generations) bassist Joëlle Léandre, pianist Elisabeth Harnik, percussionist Mark Wastell, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (Hidros 9), bassist Elsa Bergman (Playon Crayon) and seen and heard in several versions of Trondheim Jazz Orchestra as well as with dancers Marcela Giesche, Bára Sigfussdottir and Anna Westberg. As an artistic researcher PhD (Scholarship) at the Institute for Music NTNU, she is in the process of deepening her artistic praxis within the interdisciplinary interaction and expression between music and dance in free improvisation.
Lisa Ullén is a pianist and composer, born in Seoul, Korea, raised in the north part of Sweden. She has fronted her own quartet, since the mid nineties, and to date has released as a pianist over 30 albums . She studied at the Royal Musical Academy, Stockholm, and conducted further studies in jazz at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, EAM at the electronic music studio EMS in Stockholm and the Royal Institute of Art. She has been working for many years in the field of improvisation, free jazz and contemporary art music. Ullén tours internationally, solo as well in different groups.
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
