This series is a celebration of the multidimensional creativity of women, which will be explored through a series of multidisciplinary, improvised, live performances discovering the dialogue between sound, movement and shape. With the view of inspiring the next generation of creative people.
This series is supported by Maggie Nicols.
Maggie Nicols : voice
Faradena Afifi : strings, movement, voice, piano
Gwendolyn Kassenar : art, movement
Sue Lynch : saxophone, flute, clarinet
Charlotte Keeffe : trumpet, flugelhorn
Sofia Vaisman-Maturana : ‘cello
Doors 3:30 | music 4pm | entry £10
Watch the livestream here : Noisy Women on eventbrite
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 and Julie 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. She has been performing internationally over several decades and with many musicians from all over the world. As well as being an improviser, her talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition. Her full bio can be found in the website below.
Trumpeter/Flugelhorn player Charlotte Keeffe plays regularly in the London Improvisers Orchestra and has shared Concert bills/performed alongside the likes of John Edwards, Henry Lowther, Steve Noble, John Butcher, Steve Beresford and Mark Sanders. Charlotte performs as a Soloist and as part of her Trio, Space Painters, with Guitarists – Joe Smith Sands and Diego Sampieri. She has a Duo with Trumpeter Kim Macari Stone-Lonergan and is part of Discus Music’s Martin Archer’s Hi-Res Art Quintet and Anthropology Ensemble. Feature Martin Archer on sax, Dave Kane on bass, Laura Cole on piano, Graham Clark on violin and Peter Fairclough on drums, Corey Mwamba on vibraphone, Chris Sharkey on guitar and Pat Thomas on keys and electronics. She has assisted Guitarist John Russell with establishing the Mopomoso Workshop Group/MoWo.
Sofía Vaisman Maturana– ‘cello : 1993, Santiago, Chile 1993. Composer, poet, and improviser. MA in Music Composition King’s College London. Cellist of the London Improvisers Orchestra, the free improvisation trio Australes Alienígenas Ancestrales, and collaborator of soundscapes for the Lonely Impulse Collective, some of which have been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, and Resonance FM. She has improvised with various international artists in sessions at 100 Years Gallery, Cafe OTO, El Internado de Valparaíso, Festival Acéfalo, among others. Her compositions include count the premieres of “Anuarí” for orchestra (Sala Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico City, 2014), “Cetrapase Ativas” for big band (GAM, Santiago, Chile, 2015), and “Un puro en el bellas artes” for guitar (Duoc UC Extension Center, Valparaíso, Chile, 2016). She has published two poetry books in Spanish: Pasillos de tiempos precoces, Editorial Planeta de Papel, Valparaíso, 2015, and No le pongamos nombre a lo nuestro, Editorial Puntos Suspensivos Buenos Aires, 2018. In 2020 she was awarded by the Victorina Press Poetry Awards, London. She is currently studying for a PhD in Music Composition at King’s College London.
Gwendolyn Kassenaar : A Dutch visual & performance artist based in London. A graduate from Chelsea College of Art, she paints live in performances collaborating with musicians and dancers. She improvises in the moment to express the ephemeral in her quest to fuse visual art, sound, rhythm, colour and movement.
Recent performances include a large live-painted mural in Shoreditch together with a dancer, a multi-disciplinary performance at the HYG, and a duet with Beibei Wang at SOAS. During the London Jazz Festival 2021 her work was shown at the Vortex and Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Clubs. To view her recent work, visit Instagram @GwendolynKassenaar.
Sue Lynch currently runs ‘The Horse Improvised Music Club’ with Adam Bohman, Hutch Demouilpied and Adrian Northover.
Has performed with Adam Bohman, Eddie Prevost, Nuria Andorra, Richard Sanderson, Steve Noble, Crystabel Riley, Caroline Kraabel and Sharon Gal.
Currently performs with the Psychedelic Afro Beat Sudanese band ‘The Scorpios’.
In 2016 she formed, ‘Paradise Yard’, an electro acoustic ensemble, featuring women improvisers, performing at Iklectik, Cafe Oto and The ICA. In 2018, she performed at 3 Klange Tag Music &Word Festival, Switzerland with Hildegard Kleeb, at Womad BBC Stage and, Tusk Festival and Guess Who Festival with The Scorpios. Solo performance at Pied Nu Festival, Le Havre 2019. Recent releases with FMR records with ‘Dial’, a quartet featuring, Sue Lynch, Dawid Frydyk, John Edwards and Dave Fowler and ‘Secant/Tangent’ (dxdy recordings) with Crystabel Riley and Nathan Moore.
Faradena Afifi : Curator of The Noisy Women Presents – plays bowed string instruments, movement, voice, piano and percussion. She is a community musician, a busker and folk musician. A community musician since 2006 and a T’ai Chi instructor since 2004; she specialises in healing music and T’ai Chi based exercises for people with dementia, learning difficulties and brain injuries.
She attended Eddie Prevost’s improvising workshops in London. She started performing improvised gigs during lockdown 2020 as a result of jamming online with Maggie Nicols, who introduced her to the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and the Improvising Ensemble (IE). From then she performed with GIO, London Improvisers Orchestra and as part of Maggie Nicol’s Creative Liberation Orchestra in Stockholm. She is in duos with Maggie Nicols and Steve Beresford. And in the trio, The Noisy Women with Marion Treby (piano) and Gwen Kassenaar.