John Brennan – Two-Day Residency: John Brennan / Mariam Rezaei / Karen Ng / Steve Beresford (quartet) + John Brennan / Alex Moskos / Steve Beresford / Jeremy Van Wyck (quartet) + John Brennan / Karen Ng / Farida Amadou (trio)

About

John Brennan is a percussionist and sound artist based in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. As an improviser his practice is centred on collaboration and collective music-making. He is a founding member of free improv psych quintet EarthBall, and has collaborated with artists including Farida Amadou, Steve Beresford, Chris Corsano, John Dieterich, Raven Chacon, Bill Orcutt, Andy Moor, Kjetil Møster, Alexander Moskos, Karen Ng, Greg Saunier, Victoria Shen among others. Parallel to his music practice, Brennan works as a recording, editing, mixing, and mastering engineer. He has contributed to numerous releases, including all of EarthBall’s records (Upset! The Rhythm), Buzzing With Rumours (Mint Records), his duo release with Chris Corsano, as well as many others. For this two-night residency, Brennan brings together long-time collaborators and new musical connections from Canada, the UK, and Europe. Rooted in improvisation and artistic exchange, the residency grows out of relationships developed through years of touring, recording, and performance. Across two evenings, Brennan will perform in a series of different ensemble configurations with invited guests Steve Beresford, Alexander Moskos, Mariam Rezaei, Farida Amadou, Karen Ng, and Jeremy Van Wyck. Working entirely through improvisation and spontaneous composition, these artists will develop new musical relationships in real time, creating a unique experience for both performers and audiences across the residency. https://www.johnmorleybrennan.com/ FARIDA AMADOU is a self-taught bass player based in Brussels, Belgium. The electric bass has been her main instrument since 2011. In 2013, she has started to play a lot of different musical genres, including blues, jazz and hip-hop; soon she started to dive into improvised music, and was rapidly identified by local collectives and musicians. After a year (2017) as bass player in Belgian punk band Cocaine Piss, Farida decided to focus on her solo improvisation practice and collaborations with musicians such as Steve Noble, Thurston Moore, Peter Brötzmann, Terrie Ex, Lukas Koening, Pat Thomas and Julien Desprez, among others, occasionally also featuring with groups such as Jerusalem in My Heart and Moor Mother. Steve Beresford has been a central figure in the British and international spontaneous music scenes for over fifty years, freely improvising on piano, objects, electronics and other things with people like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink and John Zorn. Long-standing groups have included Alterations (with David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack), The Melody Four (with Lol Coxhill and Tony Coe, both RIP) and London Improvisers Orchestra. He has written songs, composed for large and small ensembles, and scored short films, feature films, TV shows and commercials. He was part of the editorial teams of ‘Musics’ and ‘Collusion’ magazines, writes about music in various contexts, and was a senior lecturer in music at the University of Westminster.