Friday 2 June 2017, 7.30pm
Debut OTO performance for the improvising quartet of Roger Turner (drums), Arthur Bull (guitar), Sandy Ewen (guitar), and Alan Tomlinson (trombone).
Born 1946, ROGER TURNER grew up amongst the Canterbury musical life of the 1960s with a strong foundation in jazz. Since 1974 his work has been focused on exploring a more personal percussion language through the processes of improvisation. Solo performances, connections with experimental rock music & open-form song, extensive collaborations with dance, film and visual art, and involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles and workshop residencies have all formed part of that development.
Arthur Bull has been active on the improvised music scene in Canada since the mid-1970s, during the early days of the Music Gallery in Toronto. In 1980’s he was a member of the Bill Smith Ensemble, participating in numerous multimedia collaborations, and he also toured with Smith in the music/performance duo Duck Soup. Since the late 1990’s he primarily worked with fellow guitarist Daniel Heïkalo, touring, recording and appearing in several major festivals. Over the years Arthur Bull has collaborated with many leading Canadian improvisers, and has also performed in concert with international players, including Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchicai, Joe McPhee, Roger Turner, Peter Kowald, Paul Rutherford, Bob Cobbing, Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan, John Russell, Mike Cooper, and John Butcher. He has released more than 16 CDs over the years, including solo, duo and group recordings, and has toured extensively, most recently in Europe and Mexico. Arthur is also a long-time blues musician, and has performed both as a solo act, and as a member of Les Surruralist(e)s and the Spokes. Arthur Bull is a published poet, with four poetry books to his name, and works as an activist for small-scale fisheries, locally and internationally. He lives on Digby Neck in Nova Scotia, Canada.
http://preparedguitar.blogspot.ca/2014/06/arthur-bull-13-questions.html
Sandy Ewen is an experimental guitarist, artist and architect based in Houston TX. Over the last year she performed numerous gigs in Texas, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Boston & Mexico City. She has performed alongside Roscoe Mitchell, Keith Rowe, Lydia Lunch and many others, and has albums with Weasel Walter, Jaap Blonk, Henry Kaiser, Damon Smith and more. In 2014 she performed at San Francisco's 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, and she has made several appearances at Austin's annual No Idea Festival. Her groups Garden medium, Spiderwebs, Etched in the Eye & Ewen/Smith/Walter all released albums in 2016. Ewen's approach to playing is centered around found objects and extended guitar techniques.
Alan Tomlinson has been active on the London impro scene since the late 70’s. A member of John Stevens’ Away, Tony Oxley’s Angular Apron, Peter Brotzman’s Alarm, and has played solo gigs throughout Europe, works with his own trio (with Dave Tucker and Phil Marks) and several projects with the artist Christian Marclay. He works with new music groups Sounds Positive and New London Winds, several composers have written pieces for him on both alto and tenor trombones.