Lille-based saxophonist and flutist Sakina Abdou has been active for many years within explosive collectives such as Muzzix, but it's as a solo artist that her strong, multi-faceted identity shines through: a powerful, precise sound, sometimes fierce, sometimes full of grace and quietude. 

Abdou studied the flute (early and contemporary music) and the saxophone (classical/contemporary/jazz) at the Music Academy of Lille and Roubaix. She graduated from the Fine Arts School of Tourcoing and Valenciennes (DNAP, DNSEP) and also has a State Diploma of Music Teacher. Since 1998, she has been a member of various music bands in Lille's area. Concurrently with her studies, she has explored free improvisation, experimental and contemporary music within various entities: La Pieuvre orchestra, led by Olivier Benoit, part of the collective of musicians Muzzix, the band Vazytouille, part of the collective of musicians Zoone Libre, Le Miroir et le Marteau led by rock drummer Guigou Chenevier, the free rock quintet Eliogabal or the TOC & The Compulsive Brass Band.

"It's a music of paradoxes: at once airy, with its sudden bifurcations and devilishly earthy, planted in the raucousness of the reeds." 
– Franpi Barriaux

9 pm | DOUG TIELLI’S IMAGINARY BRASS BAND

A long-time contributor to the range of experimental music in Toronto affiliated with the Rat-drifting record label, multi-instrumentalist Doug Tielli has been a key member of groups like the Silt, the Reveries, and Drumheller. Now based in Neustadt, Ontario, he has been more engaged in community music initiatives, activities that have inspired his Imaginary Brass Band project, a set of joyful, not-so-imaginary (but certainly imaginative!) tunes for an ensemble of brass and rhythm featuring Tielli, Heather Saumer, Emily Ferrell (trombones), Colin Couch (tuba), Charles Spearin (trumpet), Tania Gill (piano), and Aidan McConnell (drums).

Creating a quilt, or a pillow, not yet knowing who it’s for. A glove - that fits any hand … but just one at a time … a glove for a weather not yet known. In the fertile void of 2020-2022 The Imaginary Brass Band coalesced based on compositions for an ensemble that could not yet exist. 

Writing and recording this music for an imagined group of musicians provided a source of energy, and a sense of vitality and possibility. When playing in larger groups became easier again, a real-life ensemble of instrumentalists  came together to bring the imaginary to life. Friendly and strange, innocent and complex, this music rearranges the organic-familiar and celebrates the unusual.

Photo by Zena Curwain

North Carolina-based Bhutanese guitarist Tashi Dorji and Chicago-based saxophonist Dave Rempis first came together as a duo on the extensive solo tour that Rempis undertook across the US in 2017. Performing together in Dorji’s hometown of Asheville, the two spurred one another on with back-to-back solo sets that ratcheted up the fire, before coming together in a shared union of volcanic proportions. That initial meeting quickly led to the formation of the trio Kuzu with drummer Tyler Damon, which has toured extensively, and released five outstanding records since 2018.  Over the past couple of years, the two have also decided to revisit the more stripped back duo context as a way to re-discover the underlying tendons of what’s become a profound musical relationship. 

Both of these musicians have the ability to come out of the gate spewing lava at anything in their path. But they also know how to temper that energy into patiently constructed arcs, where meditative inner focus within the maelstrom renders the magnificence of their long form constructions even more powerful.  At times, spacious gestures carve up the canvas with the austerity of a calligrapher, while at others those sparse gestures build into an unstoppable tsunami of energy. Those waves are never impulsive or impetuous though, they ebb and flow logically and patiently out of simple and clearly defined sources. Rempis’ penchant for pentatonic melodies and rough and tumble timbres combines seamlessly with Dorji’s thick, raw sound and singular approach to intonation to produce a music that’s exquisitely detailed at any one point in time, yet can also carry the narrative arc of their longer-form explorations without ever losing its coordinates.

$30 advance tickets (for 4 acts) via Eventbrite
$40 door
$85 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

Ashville, North Carolina-based Bhutanese ex-pat, improvising guitarist Tashi Dorji is known for his avant-garde and experimental approach to music. Tashi’s idiosyncratic take on the instrument, one defined by movement and profound openness to technique, adds up to a post-colonial disembowelment of guitar traditions.

Dorji come to Asheville, NC to study in 2000 and discovered worlds of anarcho-punk and avant garde such as he’d only dreamed. Having made recordings of his newly-located improvisational conception, he intuited a desire to go deeper in his explorations of the recorded sound of the guitar, melding and colliding traditional music with his feeling for the range of textures within.

Tashi has released music both as a soloist and as a collaborator, notably with Mette Rasmussen, Aaron Turner (Sumac, Mamiffer), Che Chen (75 Dollar Bill), Aki Onda, Michael Zerang, John Deiterich (Deerhoof), C Spencer Yeh, Dave Rempis, Tyler Damon, Patrick Shiroishi, KUZU ( w/ Rempis & Damon), MANAS (w/ Thom Nguyen) on labels like Moone Records, Gilgonko Records, Bathetic Records, Trost, Cabin Floor Esoterica, Blue Tapes, Marmara Records, Feeding Tubes, UNROCK, VDSQ, MIE, Ultra Violet Light, Aerophonic Records, Medium Sound, Family Vineyard, Astral Spirits and Drag City.

$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$30 door
$85 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

8 pm | BEINGFIVE

Together since 2019, a mostly Berlin-based ensemble led by Montreal clarinettist Lori Freedman, BeingFive is made up of musicians hailing from everywhere but Berlin. With the vast capabilities of sound production from each of its members, the group can sound like it is anywhere from 1 musician to 5, to 50 musicians. The overall vocabulary of BeingFive is stupefying but what they have to “say” with this palette, unmistakably their own, will open the listener’s mind, body and spirit to a wondrous wilderness.

Yorgos Dimitriadis, born 1964 in Thessaloniki Greece, is an experimental musician, composer performer based in Berlin. Using percussion, microphones, field recordings and minimal electronics his music focuses on real time sonic landscapes, with an emphasis on timbre, sound color and long durations.

Axel Dörner, trumpet, electronics and composition, was born in Cologne, Germany, 1964 and moved to Berlin in 1994. He has worked with numerous internationally respected figures in the fields of improvised, electronic, composed contemporary music and jazz. He has developed a unique style of trumpet playing based in part on unusual, often self-invented techniques. Concert tours in Europe, North and South America, Africa, Australia, and Asia and appearance on numerous CD and record releases.

Lori Freedman is a 21st century clarinet player. Equally active in both improvised and written contemporary music, in addition to touring, recording and giving workshops, Freedman also writes music for an eclectic group of musicians, dancers, experimental film and video. As an interpretive performer hundreds of works have been dedicated to and/or premiered by Freedman.

Andrea Parkins is a sound artist, composer, and electroacoustic improviser. As a performer, she is known for her pioneering approach with her electronically processed accordion, and investigation of embodiment and chance with an array of sonic materials: employing amplified objects, electronic feedback and her custom-built software instrument. Parkins’ projects have been presented internationally and her work can be heard on numerous recordings.

Christopher A. Williams (1981, San Diego) makes, curates, and researches (mostly) experimental music. From 2021-2025 he will lead the research project “(Musical) Improvisation and Ethics” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. As a composer and contrabassist, Williams' work runs the gamut from chamber music, improvisation, and radio art to collaborations with dancers, sound artists, and visual artists. He co-curates the Berlin concert series Kontraklang.

Soprano saxophonist Kayla Milmine and tabla player Anita Katakkar’s Amrita is like a canvas where shapes are formed by rhythmic grooves, the colour is spontaneous improvisation and the texture is an exploration of tone, timber and emotion.

Kayla Milmine loves the new and under-explored sonic possibilities that only the soprano saxophone can offer. Her unique approach has the edginess and brashness of Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell yet also a warmth and thoughtfulness reminiscent of Steve Lacy. In 2019, Milmine released a solo album called ‘Straight Horn Magick; a mixture of field recordings and solo soprano saxophone improvisations. She plays regularly in trio form with pianist Bill Gilliam and percussionist Ambrose Pottie, and in duo form with guitarist/composer Brian Abbott in their band FASTER. In February 2019, she was invited to record with celebrated bassist, William Parker in a chamber-improv sextet in NY, where she often travels to study with mentor/collaborator, Sam Newsome. She is presently composing for her new project, the ‘Kayla Milmine Quartet’ with aforementioned Sam Newsome, and drummers Mark Ferber and Rachel Housle. She is co-founder of the Women From Space Festival in Toronto.

With Indian Scottish roots in multicultural Toronto, Anita Katakkar’s music represents a link between her heritage and community. She is a multi-faceted composing, performing and recording artist, with a focus on North Indian tabla. Anita has studied tabla for over 20 years, in Toronto with composer and musician Ritesh Das, and in California and Kolkata with the celebrated tabla maestro of the Lucknow tradition, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. She has recorded tabla on the Juno award winning album Thieves of Dreams by Lenka Lichtenberg, and has shared the stage with the legendary bassist William Parker. Anita’s solo project called Rakkatak, presents classical tabla compositions using a palette of rhythm, melody and ambient textures. Rakkatak’s song, Heliosphere, is the opening to CBC Radio’s “Big City Small World” hosted by Errol Nazareth. Rakkatak has released an EP and 3 full length albums, including their latest Char Taal and a Raga Rainbow, released in 2021.

Sofia Jernberg voice
Kjetil Møster sax, clarinet, electronics
Mats Gustafsson sax, flute, live electronics
Anders Hana guitar, bass, langeleik
Børge Fjordheim drums

A brand new Scandinavian powerhouse of experimental music was born in 2018. Collectively, the members of the group have worked in a huge variety of creative music ensembles over the past years: Cloroform, Møster, The Thing, Fire! & Fire! Orchestra, Ultralyd, MoHa, Sonic Youth, Refused, Paavo, Datarock, The Core, Noxact, NU-ensemble, Brutal Blues and many other essential groups within the creative music scene of today.

The End is a serious attempt to create new perspectives of contemporary experimental music – where elements of noise, melodies and layers of extreme energy can interact with the different backgrounds and experiences of the musicians and their work in genres as free jazz, noise, alternative rock, free improvised music, contemporary music, opera, Scandinavian & African folk traditions, grindcore, jazz and related activities!

…The sounds resemble the music genre favored by Don Cherry during his years in Sweden. It is world music, but one that claims no specific country of origin, nor for that matter, genre. The End fluctuates between folk, free jazz, hardcore, poetry and jazz rock. 
Mark Corroto

$30 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$40 door
$85 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

Sarah Good conductor

Vocalists:
Annie Shaw • Tee Caterini • Bailey Duff • Babette de Jong • Olga Kirgidis • J Burbage • Katie Penrose • Jess Carey • Emily Sattler • Ian Challenger • Jon Dalton • Magda Tigchelaar • Marc Ysselstein • Chris Palmer • Siobhan Murphy

We will start our festival with a tradition, now in its 6th year out of the 11. The ever-evolving local vocal institution Earth Wind & Choir first introduced their fun, adventurous sound some 15 years ago. Conductor Sarah Good plays the choir of 15-20 dedicated creative vocalists like an instrument, presenting idiosyncratic takes on the most beautiful, ugly and/or interesting music the group can find—from early polyphony to avant-pop.

Ugly Beauties explores the terrain between jazz, contemporary classical music and improvisation. Marilyn Lerner’s piano, Matt Brubeck’s cello and Nick Fraser’s drums interweave to create a boundless palette of texture and mood, and the breadth of sonic experimentation at times renders the three instruments indistinguishable from each other. Lerner, Brubeck and Fraser possess an uncanny synergy and improvisational virtuosity, allowing the music to remain free as it circulates effortlessly around groove, abstract lyricism and harmonic exploration.

A gracious treat to the ears, full of great tones and distinctive acoustic perspectives… — Touching Extremes, Italy

Happily, those experimental tendencies are offset by strong compositions and melodies, so they never descend into the tuneless racket some associate with improvised music. — NOW, Canada

Exhilarating jazz pianist/improviser Marilyn Lerner performs from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and the Ukraine. She composes for film, theatre, radio and television. She produced "Birds Are Returning", the first contemporary Canadian jazz recording to come out of Cuba. Lerner has toured with The Queen Mab Trio across North America and Europe. Lerner conducts workshops on improvisation and on Jewish music throughout North America, Europe and the former Soviet Union. Other projects include both a recording and performances of "Shake My Heart Like a Copper Bell", Lerner's contemporary Yiddish song cycle on the poetry of Anna Margolin, scored for piano, cello, clarinet and singer Adrienne Cooper, ongoing collaborations with poet Patrick Friesen, a duet, Brass Knuckle Sandwich, with Nicole Rampersaud, and numerous solo concerts.

Matt Brubeck is a Juno-nominated performer/composer specializing in improvisation on the cello. Raised on jazz and classically trained at Yale, Matt is at ease in multiple genres and has taken his cello improvisation skills into diverse musical territories. In addition to the Ugly Beauties, Matt’s current jazz/improv projects include Brubeck Braid (with pianist David Braid) and Tallboys (with guitarist Kevin Breit and percussionist Jesse Stewart), and a duo with saxophonist David Mott. Matt continues to enjoy performing with a wide range of other musicians including Evan Parker, John Geggie, Pierre Tanguay, Natalie MacMaster, Carlos del Junco, and Yo-Yo Ma to name a few. During his years in San Francisco, Matt performed with numerous jazz and improv artists including Miles Boisen, Gino Robair, Ben Goldberg, and Pamela Z. He founded Oranj Symphonette, which recorded two CD’s for Rykodisc and went on to play the major jazz festivals, from Monterey to Montréal. In the pop/rock world, Matt’s eclectic adventures include many years of recording with Tom Waits, as well as touring with the Dixie Chicks and Sheryl Crow, among others.

Nick Fraser has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1995. He has worked with a veritable “who’s who” of Canadian jazz and improvised music including Justin Haynes, Mike Murley, Rich Underhill, P.J. Perry, Phil Dwyer, Michael Snow, John Oswald, Andrew Downing, Jean Martin, Christine Duncan, Lina Allemano, Quinsin Nachoff, Dave Restivo, Jim Vivian, David Braid, Ryan Driver, David Occhipinti, William Carn, Nancy Walker, Kieran Overs, Kelly Jefferson, John Geggie, Scott Thomson, Marilyn Lerner, David Mott, Lori Freedman, Jean Derome, Ron Samworth and Kirk MacDonald.

9 pm | GAYLE YOUNG

Composer Gayle Young designs and builds instruments on which she performs music for unusual tunings. Her music often includes recordings filtered by tuned resonators she designed and built to combine pitch and overtones with environmental sound. Her text-based compositions invite musicians to build rhythms and textures in response to depictions of everyday experience.

Her recent recordings As Trees Grow (works for piano) and According to the Moon (works for voice), are both available through gayleyoung.bandcamp.com. Young’s sound installations, often in collaboration with visual artist Reinhard Reitzenstein, include tuned resonators that respond to environmental sound, found objects such as resonant stones and beaver-chewed sticks, and room-sized three-dimensional string structures. Young wrote The Sackbut Blues, the biography of pioneering electronic instrument inventor Hugh Le Caine (1914–1977). As editor of Musicworks magazine over two decades, she established an inclusive perspective on the complex and multifaceted sound worlds that characterize experimental music.

Gayle will perform two short pieces on the Amaranth and solo improvisations. One of them will include lithophone stones. She will also play improvisations that include Eugene Martynec, Bill McBirnie and Bill Gilliam in different configurations. Her improvisations place interaction among musicians in the foreground of a listener’s experience, when sounds and textures are echoed, shared, and extended.

2/5 of The End (playing next day!) grace our stage for the first time. Vocalist Sofia Jernberg and reedsman, flutist Mats Gustafsson perform an all too rare duet set! It's an exciting opportunity to experience the dialogue between two intense and gifted artists, in an unusual context and instrument combination.

Born in Ethiopia, now an Oslo resident, Sofia Jernberg is a Swedish experimental singer, improviser, and composer. She is widely known for expanding the "instrumental" possibilities of the voice and is active both as soloist and in various bands. Her musical partners include internationally acclaimed performers such as Peter Evans, Eve Risser, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kim Myhr and Heiner Goebbels.

Jernberg is the leader (together with the pianist Cecilia Persson) of the chamber jazz group Paavo. In 2008, the group received the "jazz group of the year" award from Swedish Radio. Jernberg also works on the contemporary classical music scene, in which she serves as both singer and composer.

Although having been adopted as a young child, Jernberg was never completely disconnected from Ethiopia. After traveling to Addis Abeba in 2000, she emerged into Ethiopian music traditions—inspired by the film Endurance, among other influences—, and soon started collaborating with legendary musician Hailu Mergia. Jernberg lives in Oslo.

Born in Umeå, Sweden, living in Nickelsdorf, Austria, Mats Gustafsson is a saxophone player, improviser and composer. He performs as a solo artist, as well as many other projects internationally touring/ playing with Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Peter Brötzmann, Neneh Cherry, Chrstian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, Ken Vandermark and in working groups FIRE!, THE END, LUFT, ANGUISH and Gush.

Projects include The Underflow, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Fake (the facts), BNNT, etc…. Large ensemble work ranges from FIRE! Orchestra, Klangforum Wien to the NU – ensemble. In all, over 2000 concerts and over 250 record productions in Europe, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Asia. Multidisciplinary collaborations with contemporary dance, theatre, art, poetry as well as projects with noise, electronica, contemporary rock and free jazz make Gustafsson a music and art omnivore.

$30 advance tickets (for 4 acts) via Eventbrite
$40 door
$85 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds