FÊTE QUAQUA 2009
 A three day international festival of improvised music

VENUE
The Vortex, 11 Gillett Square, London N18 8JH
August 16/17/18  Doors open 8 pm
Admission  £10 / £7 concessions  Three day season ticket £25 / £18 concessions
tel: 020 7993 3645
Guitarist and Mopomoso boss, John Russell, brings together another hand picked group of leading international improvisers in his three day annual festival -  Fête Quaqua 2009 .
PARTICIPATING MUSICIANS
Satoko Fukuda (UK)                  violin
Pat Thomas (UK)                        keyboards
John Butcher (UK)                     saxophones
Sabu Toyozumi (Japan)              percussion
Jean Bordé  (France)                  bass
Luo Chao-yun (Taiwan)               pipa
Ute Voelker (Germany                accordion
Angelika Sheridan (Germany)    flutes
Lol Coxhill (UK)                          saxophone
John Russell (UK)                       guitar
Shabaka Hutchings (UK)            reeds
Henry Lowther (UK)                   trumpet
Hannah Marshall (UK)                cello
The festival will feature both ensemble and smaller groupings to explore new collaborations developed over the three days, creating extraordinary new musical possibilities.  A major annual event on the international free improvised music scene. Booking advisable.
Mopomoso gratefully acknowledges support from The PRS Foundation and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Republic of China


The Musicians
Jean Bordé
After studying Classical and Contemporary at Ecole      Normale de Musique de Paris, Jazz (with Jacques Vidal) and Tango (with Juan José Mosalini) bassist Jean Bordé has played with an array of improvising musicians in many situations including the quartet ‘Diktat’, Steve Beresford, Bertand Gauget, Simon H Fell, Pascal Marzan and Didier Lasserre. He also composes for film and radio. 
Angelika Sheridan
After studying classical flute at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essenn, Angelika went on to further studies in improvisation and experimental music with Ran Blake and John Heiss in Boston. Employing both bass and c flutes, she combines aspects of traditional tone production with extended and self developed techniques that redefine our notions of how the instrument is played. Whilst currently teaching flute at the Cologne Music Conservatory she performs improvised and contemporary experimental music as well as collaborating with other artists in the fields of dance and silent film.
Luo Chao-yun
Luo Chao-yun gained a Master's degree in Pipa Performance at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and now teaches at the National Hsin-Chu University of Education in Taiwan. A virtuoso, she is a tireless international ambassador for the instrument, equally at home with traditional Chinese  and contemporary music, performing as a soloist or ensemble member and giving master classes and lecture recitals in North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Far East. Among the many groups she has appeared with are the Taipei Municipal, Grass Mountain Traditional and Penang Hui Yin Seh orchestras.
Lol Coxhill
Lol Coxhill became active in the jazz scene as a teenager, when he began organizing club events with both live and recorded music in 1947. During the 1960s he fronted bands of his own but mostly worked with visiting American Soul and R&B performers and later with such rock musicians as Kevin Ayers and Mike Olfdield.
By the close of the 1960s he had developed a distinctive, unrestrained style that he could integrate into any musical setting. His 1970 double album ‘Ear of the Beholder’ was one of the first releases on John Peel’s Dandelion label and throughout the 70’s he moved further into free improvisation, playing in Derek Bailey’s Company, The Spontaneous Music Ensemble and AMM. Ever eclectic Lol also began an acting career on stage, film and television. He continues to develop his improvisational skills with many of the world’s leading musicians.
Shabaka Hutchings
After growing up in Barbados Shabaka Hutchings studied classical clarinet at the Guildhall School of Music and, since graduating, has led his own trio ‘Zed-U’ and is a member of Courtney Pine’s Jazz Warriors and The London Improvisers Orchestra. A much in demand musician he has performed with amongst others: Polar Bear, The Heliocentrics, Byron Wallen, Kaidi Tathum, Anthony Joseph and The Spasm Band, Dylan Bates, Soweto Kinch, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Louis Moholo, Gary Crosby’s Nu-Troop, Tania Chen and    Roger Turner.
Henry Lowther
During the sixties Henry Lowther was one of the first musicians on the British jazz scene to experiment with totally free improvisation, notably with Lyn Dobson, Jack Bruce and John Hiseman. He played with the original and seminal Mike Westbrook band (which included Mike Osborne and John Surman), and also with John Dankworth, including playing on the now legendary Kenny Wheeler album "Windmill Tilter" while also working on the rock scene with Manfred Mann, John Mayall and Keef Hartley, with whom he appeared at the famous Woodstock festival. Henry's musical breadth is confirmed by his frequent engagements with major symphony orchestras and ensembles, including the London Brass Virtuosi, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta and the Matrix Ensemble. Until its demise Henry was for five years the solo flugelhorn player with the Strings of the BBC Radio Orchestra, and as a session musician he has recorded with Simon Rattle, Elton John, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Van Morrison, Henry Mancini, Bing Crosby, Nelson Riddle and Talk Talk amongst many others. He is one of only two or three players in the world to have had the honour of playing lead trumpet with both Gil Evans and George Russell. In the last few years Henry has become increasingly interested in composition and formed his own band "Still Waters" to enable him to pursue this interest further.
Ute Völker
Accordionist Ute Völker is a founder member of the New and Improvised music group ‘Partita Radicale’ and ‘Fineworks’ a pool of improvising musicians from North Rhein Westphalia, Wiesbaden and Bremen. She appears regularly at international festivals in both group projects and as a soloist; also working in interdisciplinary projects with visual artists, film makers, actors, writers and performance artists. She currently lives in  Wuppertal and teaches at the Musikschule Bochum.
Pat Thomas
Pat Thomas uses randomly selected, pre-recorded tapes, programmed electronics and effects boxes with electronic keyboards and acoustic piano and is a versatile musician, at home in a wide variety of musics. He has played, recorded and broadcast with many top improvisers including Derek Bailey, Roger Turner, Evan Parker, John Russell, Phil Minton. the Tony Oxley quartet, Sirone, Manfred Schoof, Fred Frith, Jim O’Rourke, Steve Beresford, Matts Gustafsson and Shelly Hirsch.
Sabu Toyozumi
Drummer Sabu Toyozumi began his professional career in 1967 playing with the Samurais and appearing at festivals alongside rock groups such as Pink Floyd, Ten Years After and Led Zeppelin. He started working in free improvisation in 1970 and joined the AACM in Chicago in 1972.
There followed a period of travel and he established his own group Sabu Unit in 1976. In 1979 he formed a duo with Kaoru Abe and from 1985 began touring in Africa, Europe, the Middle and Far East, India, Nepal, Mongolia, Korea and Burma. Since 1987 he has worked with many European musicians in Japan including Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey, Sonny Murray and Misha Mengelberg. In 2001 he began working in a duo with Takehisha Kosugi. He has also worked with (amongst others) Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith, Harri Sjostrom, Ute Wasserman, Lol Coxhill and Veryan Weston.
John Butcher
John Butcher was born in Brighton, England and has lived in London since the late 1970s. His music ranges through free improvisation, various structurings, his own compositions, multitracked saxophone pieces and work with live electronics, amplification and feedback.
He has toured and broadcast in Europe, Japan, Australia and North America and was featured, playing solo, in the BBC TV programme Date with an Artist. Compositions include pieces for Chris Burn’s Ensemble, the Austrian group Polwechsel, the Australian ensemble Elision, the American Rova Saxophone Quartet and "somethingtobesaid" for the 8-piece John Butcher Group.
Satoko Fukuda
Satoko began playing violin in Japan at the age of seven, two years later coming to England to study with Catherine Lord. Her debut concerto performance was at the age of thirteen for the Anglo Japanese Society. She has since performed and recorded in the UK and Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan, Israel, RSA and USA. In 1997, she was invited to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Natasha Boyarskaya and Lucia Ibragimova on a full scholarship. During this time she made her television debut in Japan as a soloist, was invited to perform at the Wigmore Hall and the Royal Opera House with her Quartet and led the Menuhin School Orchestra through live broadcast for Classic FM and the Menuhin Festival tour in Switzerland as well as at the Royal Albert and Queen Elizabeth Halls. Satoko graduated from the Royal College of Music where she studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky as a Joseph and Jill Karaviotis Scholar with prestigious awards such as the Ian Stouker Prize and the English Speaking Union Scholarship. Over the last five years she has established herself as an improviser of great skill and imagination playing with, among others Steve Beresford, John Russell, Hannah Marshall and Veryan Weston.
Hannah Marshall
Born 1973 in South London and a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, Hannah Marshall plays cello, musical saw, accordion, piano, voice and composes for theatre, performance and film. She also performs in visual theatre, sometimes with puppets (The Ding Foundation)and is a prodigious improviser working with, amongst others,Veryan Weston (Trio of Uncertainty,SOL), HTU,The Alexander Hawkins ensemble,Barrel and Somedectet.
John Russell
John Russell began playing the guitar in 1965, playing free improvisation in and around London from 1972 onwards. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring both in the UK and abroad.
In 1981 he founded ‘Quaqua’, a changing bank of improvisors put together in different permutations for specific events, with which he still performs. In 1987 he helped set up Acta records with John Butcher and Phil Durrant and in 1990 he inaugurated, and is the driving force behind, ‘Mopomoso’ which has becomeLondon’s longest running concert series dedicated to free improvisation.
See  http://www.mopomoso.com  for more on Mopomoso
Apart from solo work he is currently involved in a number of regular groups including:
a trio with Evan Parker and John Edwards, duos with Henry Lowther, Stefan Keune, Tanja Feichtmair, Phil Minton, Martine Altenberger and Lol Coxhill, a trio with Michel Doneda and Roger Turner, The Garden Gift Quartet, The European Contemporary Improvisers Orchestra and various projects with master percussionist Sabu Toyozumi.
‘QUAQUA’?
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 is 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 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.
For Fete Quaqua 2009 each of the three concerts will start and finish with a short ensemble piece, the main part of the evening comprising smaller groupings from the larger ensemble with each of the participating musicians playing at least twice.
‘Quaqua’ is a Latin word and means ‘whithersoever’.  John Russell

Event promoted by Mopomoso -  http://www.mopomoso.com