Originally used as a name for a weekly club for improvised music, the first Quaqua groups performed in the early 1980's under the heading 'Fete Quaqua' at the now defunct London Musicians' Collective building in Camden Town. The basic idea behind all Quaqua projects being to extend existing collaborations in juxtaposition with new groupings and thus provide a fertile ground for free improvisation.
This was an extension of the way a number of us had been working at the Little Theatre Club and the London Musicians' Co-Op concerts at the Unity Theatre from around 1973 onwards, where personnel changed from concert to concert from a pool of musicians with different approaches, who shared a love of free improvisation.
This approach has always proved fascinating to improvisors, as it offers a great range of opportunities to be inventive in the most immediate way. Thus the music is very much about the here and now of performance and this uniqueness is reflected in the fact that almost all Quaqua line-ups are never repeated after the event for which they were assembled. Some of the previous participants have built on their initial meetings in Quaqua and have gone on to work together in more fixed groups to great success.
This years' 'Fete Quaqua' has twelve 'original voices', some of whom have worked together for many years, and others who have never played together before. Their musical backgrounds stretch across an enormous variety of styles and settings.
Each concert will start and finish with a short ensemble piece, the main part of the evening comprising smaller groupings from the larger ensemble to be decided immediately prior to performance.
'Quaqua' is a Latin word and means 'whithersoever'.