‘For this 40th birthday musical extravaganza, I’ve invited some spectacular London improvisers, plus a few special international guests to join me in a FULL DAY! of informal improvised music sets in various combinations. There will also be some secret surprise non-improvised musical delights mixed in, so turn up between 3 and 10 pm, eat some cake, make some new friends and catch some music. Turn up when you like, leave when you like, it’s a relaxed event’.
Emily Suzanne Shapiro (Canada/UK) – bass clarinet, clarinet
Devon Osamu Tipp (USA)- shakuhachi
Jo De Hulsters (Belgium/Germany)- double bass
Douglas Benford (UK)- melodica/tenor recorder/objects
Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser (UK)- piano
Sofia Vaisman Maturana (Chile/UK)- cello
Laura Beardsmore (UK)- flute, alto flute
Music all day from 3pm | £9 cash for full day
Emily Suzanne Shapiro is a Canadian bass clarinetist and clarinetist dedicated to exploring and creating new music. Emily has a special love for the sound and scope of bass instruments and constantly pushes the limits of what she can do on bass clarinet.
Alongside performing contemporary music on bass clarinet, Emily is involved in many other musical endeavours. Composing and improvising are central to her work, and she has been an active performer of Balinese gamelan for 10 years and has also explored jazz, klezmer, rock and electroacoustics. She is always seeking out new artistic experiences to enrich and motivate her work.
Outside of music, Emily loves gardening, running, whisky and making friends with animals.
Devon Osamu Tipp (they/them) is a shakuhachi player and composer whose work investigates the intersections between traditional Japanese music, contemporary musical praxis, and microtonality. Their compositions draw influence from free improvisation, experiences as a jeweler and painter, and studies of gagaku and hōgaku in the US and Japan. Tipp has presented their work at venues like the International Shakuhachi Festival Prague, Music of the Edge (Pennsylvania, US), Oulu Music Festival (Finland), New Music on the Point (Vermont, US) , Harvard University, Columbia University and others.
Jo De Hulsters is a Belgian double bassist, alto saxophonist and improviser currently based in Hamburg. Being self taught he sees no restrictions or boundaries in approaching the instrument and is always looking for new sounds, new ways of playing and pushing things further and harder, softer and louder.
Jo has collaborated with the likes of Francisca Markus (GER), Teru Koike (JAP), Edward Jason Gibbs (USA), Emily Suzanne Shapiro (CAN), Elisa Nessler (GER), Lonely Impulse Collective (UK), Les Feuillus (UK) and others.
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 regular contributor to the Lonely Impulse Collective. His
collaborators include Alan Wilkinson, Dominic Lash, Blanca Regina, poet Tamar Yoseloff, Angharad Davies, sculptor Rob Olins, Matt Atkins, Lina Lapelyte, Marjolaine Charbin, Sylvia Hallett, Steve Beresford, Hannah Marshall, Adam Bohman, John Edwards, Jennifer Allum, and Sue Lynch.
Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser (they/them) is a performer, improviser and composer and researcher specialising in performing and composing new works for piano (solo
and chamber), live electronics and multi-disciplinary ensembles. Their research at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (PhD) explores how we can create and use queer processes in experimental music. Current projects include curating Common Ground: an experimental music and film event series, with their second event taking place in The Rose Hill, Brighton on 1st June 2023 and the premiere of ensemble PLASTIC BODIES’ new operatic work, created at the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme in Snape Maltings 2020 and Wild Plum Arts, Made At The Red House (2021). The premiere is on 2nd September with Tete a Tete in the Cockpit Theatre, London.
Sofia Vaisman Maturana is a music composer, poet, and improviser. She was born in Santiago de Chile in 1993. On her arrival to London in 2018 she approached the world of free improvisation performing with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) (2018-2021), completed her MA in Music Composition at King’s College London. Was awarded second prize in the Victorina Press Poetry Awards 2019. Since the pandemic, she has been invited to collaborate with the Lonely Impulse Collective (LIC) (2020-2022), from where she regularly published more than fifty objects and soundscapes. Some of which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and on Resonance FM. She has improvised with several international artists in sessions at the 100 Years Gallery, Cafe OTO, Iklektik, El Internado de Valparaíso, and Festival Acéfalo. Has also produced music for theatre plays, and her compositions have been premiered at the Sala Nezahualcóyotl (Mexico City,) Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (Santiago, Chile) and the LMTA Balkono theater (Vilnius, Lithuania), among others
She is currently studying her PhD in Composition at King’s College London and is part of the improvisers orchestra ONe Orchestra, made up exclusively of women and trans people. As for literature, she writes regular chronicles for SalvoConducta Fanzine and is currently working on her first novel.
Laura Beardsmore is a London based flautist with a varied career as a performer and teacher. She studied with Carla Rees at Royal Holloway University of London and later with Robert Dick at his residential studio in New York City.
As a player, Laura is particularly at home with twentieth and twenty first century repertoire, enjoying discovering lesser known pieces and composers. She plays alto and bass flutes and has performed with the low flutes ensemble rarescale Flute Academy throughout the UK as well as in Greece, Poland and Washington DC.
When she’s not playing the flute, Laura can often be found running or cooking, and hoping that one cancels out the other!
