17 August 2025

Dave Tucker, Alex Ward, Hannah Marshall & Matt Hutchinson

Alex Ward is a composer, improviser and performing musician (primarily on clarinet and guitar) based in London. He leads various ensembles under the heading of the Item Series to perform his compositions for improvising musicians, and he is a member of many other groups including legendary rock band Pere Ubu.

mcddavid, Matt Clark, Sylvia Hallett, Charlotte Keeffe, Maria Sappho, Paul Jolly, Tim Fletcher, Armin Sturm, Susanna Ferrar, Ulrike Schöller & Jörg Hufschmidt

Hanover based mcddavid is part of the Mopomoso Team. As an improviser mcddavid developed techniques without touching the instrument. He makes chaos poems and subversive performances with balloons and pipe-cleaners. He has composed two operas involving audience participation for Mopomoso.

Matt Clark is a guitarist and improviser based in SE London.

His work sidesteps traditional notions of harmony and melody, instead exploring the random and unexpected within improvisation around twelve tones, and the sonic possibilities of unorthodox techniques.

Sylvia Hallett is a multi-instrumentalist and composer. Her work grew out of the London Musicians Collective, where she played in a trio with Lol Coxhill and Susannah Ferrar, and was a regular contributor on NATO records with British Summer Time Ends.

British musician, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Charlotte Keeffe wears her love for free improvisation, jazz and experimental music on her sleeve. Whether performing regularly as a soloist (Sound Brush), or leading a variety of different ensembles, including her Right Here, Right Now Quartet, she carefully carves out spaces for the free movement of ideas and individual expression.

Maria Sappho is a Puerto Rican American, currently working as an improviser, artist and researcher in the UK. She is a member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and founding member of the Noisebringers ensemble (CH/UK). She is a winner of the BBC Radiophophonic Daphne Oram award (2021), Dewar awards (2018) and New Piano Stars Competition (2015). She has worked with a number of large ensembles; International Contemporary Ensemble (US), BBC Scottish symphony orchestra, Australian Art Orchestra, and the Instant Composers Pool (ND).

Paul Jolly is a saxophonist, clarinettist and flutist working within the fields of contemporary improvised since 1969, when he joined the iconic People Band with whom he still performs.

Susanna Ferrar is a violinist with a special interest in site-specific improvisation. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and one of HT Ferrar’s grandchildren. She undertook her Postgraduate Certificate in Antarctic Studies (PCAS) at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2011-12, and, during this time, saw many of the places first visited and named by the men of “Discovery”. She has played her violin in Scott’s hut in Antarctica.

The sound artist Jörg Hufschmidt (Hanover) is known for his experimental/artistic dialogue between painting, sound performance, drawing and music.