Live quartet improvisation:
Daniel Sonabend – double bass
Catherine Pluygers – oboe
John Trice – guitar
Douglas Benford – tenor recorder / objects
Doors 3.30 | music 4pm | £10 cash
Daniel Sonabend is a London-based composer, producer and sound artist. With a distinctive sound that blends his jazz background with contemporary composition and experimental music production, his music can be heard in a wide range of works, spanning across film, TV, album releases and installation art. Drawing from his Iraqi, British and Jewish heritages, Daniel grew up in the Tel Aviv jazz scene, quickly becoming a sought after arranger, music producer and instrumentalist. Specialising on extended bass techniques and often performing on his own compositions, he proceeded to study at the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and at University of Westminster under acclaimed composer Shirley Thompson OBE and Steve Beresford, where he quickly became known for his unique approach to sound design, his attention to detail with orchestration and texture, and his emotive and forward-thinking works. His work has been presented worldwide, including at the Museum of Future in Dubai, Palais de Tokyo, the Grand Museum of Perfume in Paris, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, De Electriciteitsfabriek at The Hague and The Louvre in Abu Dhabi to name a few. When not working on scores, Daniel produces, performs and collaborates with other artists, including Eliza Shaddad with whom he created the Arab/Jewish experimental electronic-jazz duo Sandscape, with their debut album Phenomenology released in June 2026.
https://danielsonabend.co.uk/
John Trice is a London-based musician, designer, and co-curator known for his significant contributions to the UK’s free improvisation and experimental music scene. He is a driving force behind Shrike Records, a London-based label dedicated to documenting the raw energy and subtle interplay of avant-garde and improvised music, as well as being involved with the Lo-Fi and London Improvisors workshops and performing at events such as Adam Bohman’s in New Cross, and the Horse Improv club. As co-curator and producer for Shrike alongside Mark Davies, Trice has been instrumental in releasing vital recordings from the experimental community. He produced the album Elusive, which brings together renowned improvisers like John Butcher and Steve Beresford, and was responsible for the releases by Sophie Agnel, Alex Ward, Caroline Kraabel, John Edwards, Rachel Musson, Albert Newton, Charles Hayward and Pat Thomas amongst others. Through Shrike’s events at venues like Iklectik Arts Lab, John Trice helps sustain a vital space for musical improvisation in London.
https://shrikerecords.
Catherine Pluygers was born in Colchester in 1955. She studied oboe with Peter Graeme, Edwin Roxburgh and Terence McDonagh at the Royal College of Music and with Ray Still at the Banff Centre of Fine Arts, Canada. As a soloist she has toured widely in Britain with a particular interest in music for oboe and organ, contemporary music and improvised music and has premiered Sonata No 2 for Oboe and Piano by Ruth Gipps which was written for her. In 1985 she formed the New Wind Symphony Orchestra and New Wind Summer School. New Wind Symphony Orchestra gave its debut in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and worked in London and SE England until 1995. Since 1991 she has been presenting her own compositions including ‘Gloryland’ a one-woman show performed at Hull and Coventry Universities etc. and ‘The Square’ a mixed-media piece performed at the South Bank (QEH) and Hong Kong City Hall. She has also had performances on BBC Radio 4 ‘Woman’s Hour’, Almeida Festival, and in Denmark, USA, Hong Kong, Syria and Spain. In April 2005 she was the first solo oboist and first person to present contemporary music in the April Spring Friendship Festival in Pyonyang, North Korea. In 1998 she started London New Wind Festival, a small festival designed to promote contemporary music written for wind players supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation, Holst Foundation and the Performing Rights Society.
http://catherinepluygers.co.
Douglas Benford, composer and sound artist, has been involved in various audio genres and monikers since the late 1980s, performing at institutions in the UK (Bristol’s Arnolfini, London’s Science Museum, Tate Modern, The Roundhouse, ICA and Glasgow’s CCA), festivals worldwide (Mutek, Synch, Transmediale) and has had installation work in numerous UK galleries (London, Swansea, Stroud and Essex). His pieces and performances have been aired on the radio internationally, and regularly on BBC Radio 3’s Freeness programme and the Ambrosia Rasputin show on Resonance FM. After numerous electronica releases and activity in the 90s and 2000s, he now plays using acoustic sources (eg harmonium, toys, objects) with the London Improvisers Orchestra and Confront Recordings / Mark Wastell’s The Seen collective, as well as being a contributor to the Lonely Impulse Collective and member of the trio Small Print Drama with Tom Ward and Iris Colomb. His collaborators include Alan Wilkinson, Dominic Lash, Blanca Regina, poets Tamar Yoseloff & Iris Colomb, Angharad Davies, Verity Lane, Clive Bell, sculptor Rob Olins, Matt Atkins, Lina Lapelyte, Marjolaine Charbin, Tilly Coulton, Sylvia Hallett, Steve Beresford, Hannah Marshall, Adam Bohman, John Edwards, Jennifer Allum and Sue Lynch.
http://dbenford.bandcamp.com/
