Peter Manson lives in Glasgow. His books include Poems of Frank Rupture, Adjunct: an Undigest and Between Cup and Lip, and his translations include Stéphane Mallarmé: The Poems in Verse. His most recent booklets are a collaboration with Mendoza, WINDSUCKERS & ONSETTERS: SONNOTS for Griffiths, and a solo pamphlet, self-avoiding space-filling curve. For more info, and samples, visit petermanson.wordpress.com
Rachel Musson is a saxophonist, composer and improviser renowned for her bold, fluid playing. She is currently a recipient of the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composer award. Recent recordings include I Went This Way (577 Records) for 9-piece improvising ensemble including speech and various trio albums with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas and John Edwards (577 Records).
'A free-improviser sensitive to melody-like narrative and dramatic pacing'. (John Fordham, The Guardian)
Doors for this event open at 7pm. The events begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
When you’ve lived such a rich musical life as 80-year old saxophone legend Evan Parker the stories pour out. But what happens if you blur the boundary between anecdote and musical improvisation?
Evan Parker and Matthew Wright (Trance Map) join forces with long-time collaborator and sonic storyteller Filipe Gomes. Evan and Matt have recently released ‘Transatlantic Trance Map’ with False Walls and ‘Horizons Held Close’ with Relative Pitch. Evan and Filipe (Arco Barco, Ramsgate Radio) have recently collaborated on Daniel Blumberg’s Oscar-winning score for the hit film The Brutalist.
Doors for this event open at 7pm. Music begins at 8pm. A wide range of refreshment are available throughout the evening from the cafe.
Workshop Collective is an octet formed by saxophonist Matt Miles to provide a platform for collaboration and experimentation. Some of the region's best jazz performer-composers meet regularly to workshop each other's pieces and develop personal approaches to writing for a chamber jazz orchestra.
The Leon String Quartet play repertoire, write their own music and collaborate with a wide range of artists. Previously at Free Range they have played Shostakovich, collaborated with adventurous folk group Arlet and played the polytemporal music of experimental rock composer and guitarist Joe Inkpen.
Members of these two groups combine to perform two new collaborative pieces commissioned by Free Range especially for this performance.
This special event is a collaboration between the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, Free Range and world-renowned Hurdy-Gurdy maker Claire Dugue.
‘Living legend’ Valentin Clastrier is considered the inventor of the modern hurdy-gurdy which, in his hands, creates a magical and virtuoso universe. His playing is full of surprises, as is his career. Originally a guitarist alongside Jacques Brel he then discovered the hurdy-gurdy and, over the years, worked with instrument makers on prototypes of electroacoustic hurdy-gurdies leading to his current 27-string instrument.
‘deep sonorous drones supporting cascades of notes and sometimes discordant swashes of sound, with electronic effects feeding the serpentine melodies and creating hauntingly powerful, sometimes intoxicating sonic spirals’.
After winning several prestigious awards and much critical acclaim, Valentin is back in England for the first time in over 20 years and we’re very happy to have him in Canterbury!
There will be two workshops for hurdy-gurdy players earlier in the day, one with Valentin Clastrier and the other with Nigel Eaton. To book a place contact Claire at mail@claire-dugue.com
Evan Parker (soprano saxophone)
‘If you've ever been tempted by free improvisation, Parker is your gateway drug’
Stewart Lee, The Guardian‘There is, still, nothing else in music - jazz or otherwise - that remotely resembles an Evan Parker solo concert’
Steve Lake‘One of the music's greatest living instrumentalists’
The Times
For over 50 years Evan Parker has been widening the scope of what is possible on a saxophone. Using techniques such as circular breathing, Parker creates complex worlds of sound with vivid, intricate detail projected into polyphonic textures that slowly evolve and grow. It’s as if Parker dismantled all musical language associated with the saxophone and stripped it back to simply air passing through a column and, from this ground zero, created something new that is simultaneously primal, modern, hypnotic, intimate, vast and microscopic.
Information about tickets and booking
We have partnered with the Gulbenkian Arts Centre for this special event.
Tickets cost £15 (£10 students) and are available here:
Click here to book tickets
Links
Valentine Clastrier Links:
Evan Parker Links:
Black Top, the duo of multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson and pianist Pat Thomas, is a shape-shifting unit whose freely improvised performances combine twisted loops, samples and dub-effects, drawing on their Afro-Caribbean roots with a spontaneity and daring rooted in experimental free-jazz.
Returning to Free Range after their 2019 performance, they are joined by the gifted 24-year old saxophonist, flautist and composer, Xhosa Cole (BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year 2018).
[Black Top’s latest album, Some Good News,] vibrates with wild energy from start to finish … But what really lifts this above the average is the unit's ability to switch seamlessly into diasporic pan-global grooves … This 21st century melting pot is brimming over with thrills. (Jazzwise)
Links
Black Top (live at Free Range 2019)
https://soundcloud.com/search?q=black%20top%20free%20range
Xhosa Cole