Steve Beresford

Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over fifty years, freely improvising on piano, objects, electronics and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink and John Zorn. Long-standing groups have included Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack), The Melody Four (with Lol Coxhill and Tony Coe, both RIP) and London Improvisers Orchestra.

He has written songs, composed for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of ‘Musics’ and ‘Collusion’ magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster.

Steve has worked with Christian Marclay on various Marclay mixed media pieces. He has also worked with The Slits, Najma Akhtar, Stewart Lee, Ivor Cutler, Prince Far-I, Alan Hacker, Tania Chen, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Faradena Afifi, Blanca Regina, Ray Davies, Mandhira De Saram, The Flying Lizards, Zeena Parkins, The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Ilan Volkov, Rachel Musson, Vic Reeves, Lore Lixenberg, Valentina Magaletti and many others.

Beresford has an extensive discography - around 500 releases - as performer, arranger, free-improviser, composer, conductor and producer. He was awarded a Paul Hamlyn award for composers in 2012.

In 2021, Bloomsbury published a book by Andy Hamilton: ‘Pianos, Toys, Music and Noise: Conversations with Steve Beresford’.

In 2022, Siglio published the book ‘Call and Response’, which partnered photographs by Christian Marclay with notated improvisations by Beresford.

Maggie Nicols

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.

Paul Khimasia Morgan

As well as using the guitar body for solo improvisation, Paul Khimasia Morgan has worked collaboratively with Steve Beresford, Blanca Regina and Richard Sanderson, Mark Wastell’s THE SEEN, Cristián Alvear, Daniel Spicer, Charlotte Keefe, Gus Garside, Klaus Janek, Simon Whetham, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Ryu Hankil and others. He promotes improvised music and sound art projects in Brighton and the South Coast under the banner aural detritus concert series, and is the host of The Archive of Aural Detritus podcast. Paul writes about new music for The Sound Projector.

Teresa Hackel

The recorder player Teresa Hackel, born in Berlin, is based in Switzerland since 2005.

Her focus is free improvisation and she is keen to search for strange and unconventional sounds on the different types of the recorder. In her playing she values listening – there is no unnecessary sound, just the music that comes by itself.Teresa Hackel was awarded the 3rd Prize at the Concours Nicati for interpreters of contemporary music in Bern. In 2018 the CD “Solare” was released with pieces of Fausto Romitelli, in 2022 she released the CD “Zustandsformen” with the guitar player Karin Rüdt. The Aargauer Kuratorium has awarded Teresa Hackel with a scholarship and a stay in London from July to December 2024. She has worked collaboratively with Caroline Kraabel, Sue Lynch, Eiko Yamada, Tony Hardie-Bick, Tansy Spinks, Adrian Northover, Ivor Kallin, Pascal Marzan, Douglas Benford and many others.

https://www.teresa-hackel.com

Sam Eastmond

Sam Eastmond is a composer, arranger, bandleader, trumpet player and producer creating music incorporating a variety of genres including jazz, klezmer, cartoon, rock, surf, world, jewish and Downtown influences. Interweaving improvisation and intricately arranged composition Eastmond's sound world transcends traditional concepts of genre boundaries.

He co-founded and leads the Spike Orchestra, a large ensemble who have recorded Four studio albums since 2014, their debut Ghetto (Spike Records), two collaborations with New York legend John Zorn as part of his Masada Book on Tzadik Label, Cerberus: The Spike Orchestra Play Masada Book Two and Binah from the forthcoming Masada Book Three series and the upcoming 2020 Spike Orchestra album

Faradena Afifi

Faradena Afifi: Founder of The Noisy Women Present, and The Noisy People’s Improvising Orchestra, Fara is also an Initiator, Connector and Performer. Faradena is a person with neurodiversity who has mixed Afghan/British heritage. She is a T’ai Chi Chuan practitioner/instructor, folk singer and improvising community musician who plays bowed string instruments, piano and percussion. She also specialises in healing music and T’ai Chi-based exercises for people with learning differences and brain injuries/conditions.

During lockdown 2020, through jamming online with Maggie Nicols, Fara joined the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and the Improvising Ensemble (IE). This led to performing with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO), and with Maggie Nicol’s Creative Liberation Orchestra in Stockholm 2021 and various musicians since. She co-leads the International Online Improvising Workshop with Tony Hardie Bick, the online sister of The London Improvising Workshop, originally started by Eddie Prevost.

When not teaching or performing on stage, she is out busking with Cambridge musician Banjo Nick.

https://www.faradenamusic.co.uk/
https://faradenaafifi.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@FaradenaAfifi
https://www.noisywomenpresent.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/@noisywomenpresent7427
‘In Afghanistan no women or girls have access to education. By playing music I am playing for the people who can't’