THURSDAY, May 19, 2022

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

• Trio DDK (CH/D)

The DDK Trio consists of some of the leading figures in the European improvised music scene: Jacques Demierre (piano), Axel Dörner (trumpet) and Jonas Kocher (accordion). They had their premiere at the Météo Mulhouse festival in France in 2014, followed by a series of performances across Europe, as well as in Russia and Japan. The approach of this trio implies complete indulgence in the moment itself and the openness of the musicians to surprises and unexpected situations. Ignoring any stylistic idioms, the members of the trio create music through intense listening to each other, moving in a wide dynamic range, from silence to sound eruptions. In September 2019, the DDK Trio, in collaboration with the Swiss ensemble Contrechamps, performed the premiere of the work Biotope, whose author is a member of the band, Jacques Demierre. The trio has released the LPs Floating Piece of Space (Cave12, 2016) and Cone of Confusion (Bruit, 2018) so far.

• Andy Moor & Tony Buck (GB/AUS)

Born in London, Andy Moor began his musical life in Edinburgh, playing guitar with the band Dog Faced Hermans, a multi faceted eclectic group that mixed energetic post punk energy with traditional tunes and improvisations. In 1990 he moved to Amsterdam after an invitation to join Dutch band The Ex. In 1995 he began another group, Kletka Red, with Tony Buck, Joe Williamson and Leonid Soybelman, fusing traditional klezmer, Greek and Russian songs with their own frantic styles of playing. In more recent years Andy has collaborated with musicians from many and varied backgrounds and disciplines differing from his own background which was rooted in the post punk Britain of the 80s. His latest projects include a Lean Left quartet with Ken Vandermark, Terrie Ex and Paal Nilssen Love, a Decade trio with Berlin based artists and musician Alva Noto and Anne James Chaton, and a Heretics trio project with Anne James Chaton and Thurston Moore. Tony Buck is regarded as one of Australia’s most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. As a drummer, percussionist, improviser, guitarist, video maker and producer, he has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects but is probably best known around the world as a member of the trio The Necks. Apart from The Necks he has played, toured or recorded with Jon Rose, Otomo Yoshihide, John Zorn, T. Cora, Phil Minton, Haino, Even Parker, The Machine for Making Sense, Lee Ranaldo, Ne Zhdall, The EX, Clifford Jordan, Ground Zero. Following studies and early experience in Australia he spent time in Japan, where he formed Peril with Otomo Yoshihide and Kato Hideki before relocating to Europe in the mid-nineties.

FRIDAY, May 20, 2022

Drugstore, 9 pm:

• Gordan (SRB/D/A)

The Gordan trio consists of Berlin musicians Andi Stecher (drums) and Guido Möbius (bass and electronics), as well as traditional Serbian artist Svetlana Spajić. Their debut album Down in the Meadow (Morphine Records, 2021) was praised by international critics, and some critics consider it the best albums of 2021. During the pandemic, the Gordan trio created a rare concept, in which the traditional music of Serbia and the Balkans can be recognized, but not as we are used to, in simple, easy-listening arrangements, as can often be heard in the West. Because, Svetlana Spajić, as the leading interpreter of traditional Serbian song, is also open to unusual collaborations with foreign and domestic artists and ensembles; Let’s just mention Bob Wilson, Marina Abramović, Isabelle Duthoit, Franz Hautzinger, zeitkratzer, Blank Disc, Boris Kovač… The Berlin part of the trio Gordan, Stecher and Möbius, have published their numerous solo and group works for Decorder, Karaoke Kalk, Clapping music, Karl Records, Shitkatapult so far. The two also perform as a G.A.M.S duo.

•  Rabih Beaini (D/RL)

Lebanese-born producer and DJ Rabih Beaini (formerly known as Morphosis) specializes in grainy, imaginative analogue techno. In the past years however, his Morphine label has telescoped in on key (often overlooked) voices in avant-garde electronic and outernational music. As Morphosis, Beaini has been crafting away in the nether-regions of the techno underworld since the 90s. Having cut his teeth as a DJ, a move to Italy in 1996 proved the catalyst to start experimenting in the studio. And he really did experiment – few people craft the sort of emotional, exploratory techno as Beaini has for labels like Sistrum Recordings (Detroit), M>O>S (Amsterdam), and Styrax (Berlin). His two recent albums, Albidaya on Lebanese label Annihaya and Dismantle/Music For Vampyr on Honest Jon’s, follow his critically acclaimed 2011 debut LP, What Have We Learned, on Delsin. Beaini’s genuine musical ability and a range of influences — from krautrock to new wave — seep into his inventive, dark, and emotional productions and immersive DJ sets. These influences also find their way into Beani’s productions with the Upperground Orchestra, a multi-headed improvisational ensemble that explores the terrain between electronica, techno, and improvisational jazz.

SATURDAY, May 21, 2022

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

• GGRIL (CDN)

GGRIL is a large improvisers ensemble coming from Rimouski, a small Eastern Quebec town. Its strange combination of instruments produces a unique sonic palette consisting of electric and acoustic instruments, for a playful experience in new territories. Le GGRIL has been active since 2007 and it celebrates this year its 15th anniversary with a 7th album, the ambitious and massive SOMMES, comprised of 3 discs, 12 commissioned pieces from 12 different composers, 21 musicians and 211 minutes of music. SOMMES really is GGRIL atop of its creative strength. For the performance of its SOMMES tour, the GGRIL has chosen an amalgam of pieces, concepts and improvisations explored by the ensemble over the past few years. The 14 musicians will present compositions from the album SOMMES (2021), as well as games, directed improvisations, and pieces composed by members of the group. Never identical, the performances of the GGRIL are intended as a journey where the listener can immerse themselves in the universe of the GGRIL through an authentic and unexpected experience from show to show. Line-up: Catherine S. Massicotte (violin), Clarisse Bériault (oboe), Emie Lachapelle (alto saxophone), Éric Normand (electric bass), Isabelle Clermont (electric harp), Luke Dawson (contrabass), Marc-Antoine Mackin-Guay (baritone guitare), Olivier D’Amours (electric guitar), Pascal Landry (classical guitar), Patricia Ho-Yi Wang (violin), Robin Servant (accordion), Sébastien Côrriveau (bass clarinet), Thomas Gaudet-Asselin (electric bass) and Tom Jacques (percussion).

•  The Fruitful Darkness (I/AUS)

Saxophonist Gianni Gebbia (sax & electronics), known for his decades-long solo explorations, meets Australian drummer Tony Buck, known to the public for being part of the legendary band The Necks. The Fruitful Darkness is an open project/concept created by Gianni Gebbia. Inspired by the homonymous title of the book by the anthropologist and Zen teacher Joan Halifax, this project/concept had been performed with Gianni Gebbia in solo, and in duo with bassist Massimo Pupillo (for the Wall of Sounds Palermo festival) before settling into a duo with Tony Buck with whom they performed in 2021 at the Jazz is Dead Festival in Turin, enjoying a surprising success. Inspirations coming from the multiple experiences of the two musicians are connected in a mixture of tribal rhythms, complex drones, hypnotic textures like shamanic and influences coming from Indian music. The dark ambient meets the radical improvisation in new territories. All this is marked by Buck’s strong rhythmic figure and by the skilful use of the circular breathing technique of which Gebbia is one the undisputed masters. In 2022 the recording of their live Jazz is Dead was featuread in a full broadcast by Battiti Rai 3, Italian national radio.

WEDNESDAY, May 25, 2022

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

•  Joëlle Léandre (F)

French double bass player, improviser and composer Joëlle Léandre is one of the dominant figures of the new European music. Trained in orchestral as well as contemporary music, she has played with L’Itinéraire, Ensemble 2e2m and Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble intercontemporain. Joëlle Léandre has also worked with Merce Cunningham and with John Cage, who has composed especially for her — as have Scelsi, Fénelon, Jolas and Clementi. As well as working in contemporary music, Léandre has played with some of the great names in jazz and improvisation, such as Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Irène Schweizer, Steve Lacy, Fred Frith and John Zorn. She has written extensively for dance and theatre, and has staged a number of multidisciplinary performances. Her reputation is international, and her work as a composer and a performer, both in solo recitals and as part of ensembles, has put her under the lights of the most prestigious stages of Europe, the Americas and Asia. Joëlle Léandre also has more than a hundred recordings to her credit.

• Jasna Jovićević Quinary (SRB)

Composer and saxophonist, Jasna Jovićević, researches the creative process in composing and improvising, perception and production of sound frequencies and contextualized musical structures, which in a special way affect the mind and body. The music of the Jasna Jovićević Quinary is conceptual program music, written for string quartet, saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, spacedrum and voice. The free improvizing interaction between the participants harmoniously permeates the contemporary approach of the chamber ensemble. The new program of the Jasna Jovićević quintet will present original music from the last two albums – Flow Vertical, a holistic artistic study of sound vibrations through music, and Sounding Solitude, an album that testifies to the inner journey into a new reality caused by the pandemic in two years. This group opens the forms with improv framed by a contemporary expression of string format with a wide range of experience in an innovative approach to 21st century music. The collective expression they create is a mirror of togetherness and compassion in these extraordinary times and experiences that we all go through. Quinary members: Jasna Jovićević (composition, saxes, bass clarinet, spacedrum, flute, voice), Filip Krumes (violin), Rastko Popović (viola), Pavle Popović (cello) and Milan Nikolić (double bass).

THURSDAY, May 26, 2022

Jewish Cultural Center “Oneg Shabbat”, 8 pm:

• Phil Minton & Szilárd Mezei (GB/SRB)

Phil Minton is a jazz/free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter. Minton is a highly dramatic baritone who tends to specialize in literary texts: he has sung lyrics by William Blake with Mike Westbrook’s group, Daniil Kharms and Joseph Brodsky with Simon Nabatov, and extracts from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake with his own ensemble. He sings on a Jimi Hendrix tribute album, belting out the lyrics in over-the-top fashion. Between 1987 and 1993 Minton toured Europe, North America, and Russia with Lindsay Cooper’s Oh Moscow ensemble. He is perhaps best known, however, for his completely free-form work, which involves “extended techniques” that can be as unsettling as they can be mesmerising. His vocals often include the sounds of retching, burping, screaming, and gasping, as well as childlike muttering, whining, crying and humming; he also has an ability to distort his vocal cords to produce two notes at once. He has worked with most of the improvising musicians in the European scene. Unlike some first-generation free improvisers, he has also become a frequent participant in electroacoustic improvisation. Szilárd Mezei wa born in Senta, Serbia as a member of the Hungarian minority in the multiethnic region of Vojvodina. As violinist, violist, double bass player and composer and in various formations (from duo to nonett) he held many concerts throughout Europe. As a composer, Mezei is interested in exploring the relationship between improvisation and composition, incorporating elements of jazz and authentic folk music as well. Since 2001, Mezei has been closely collaborating with choreographer Josef Nadj. Their mutual project Les Philosophes was selected theatre-piece of the year 2001 in France. In 2006 they collaborated on a new project Asobu (together with co-composer Akosh S.). As a performer Mezei participated in many workshops of improvised and intuitive music. Played so far with many musicians/improvisors. He lead the Szilárd Mezei Trio / Quintet / Sextet / Septet / Octet / Ensemble, and plays in many formations for improvising music.

•  Echo Pointers (SRB/FIN)

The members of the Echo Pointers are Adele Sauros (saxophones) from Finland, and Predrag Okiljević (saxophones), Marko Ćurčić (bass) and Aleksandar Škorić (drums) from Serbia. Marko, Aleksandar and Adela studied music together at the Prince Klaus Conservatory in Groningen, the Netherlands. After graduating in 2017, they spent some time in Helsinki, where they played a series of concerts and recorded a demo album. A few years later, in 2021, Predrag, Marko and Aleksandar recorded their first album called djapemarecoa. After that, they decided to continue collaborating as a quartet, and as part of the tour in May 2022, they will record an album. The music they create is a unique combination of the influence of Scandinavian and other jazz avant-garde scenes (Juhani Aaltonen, John Tchicai, Peter Brötzmann) and Bosnian sevdah with elements of brass bands from the Dragačevo area in Serbia. This mixture results in sometimes explosive and energetic moments, as well as meditative and repetitive motives.

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