Back in May 2012, while Mike Svobodo was visiting Edinburgh to do some workshops with University of Edinburgh postgraduate students, some locals, including myself, did a free-improvisastion concert with him. We recorded it and finally got around to mixing and mastering it before releasing it on bandcamp in 2017.
It’s a single-track 42-minute improvisation which you can listen to and download on bandcamp. The personnel was as follows:
Michael Edwards, saxophones and electronics
Lauren Sarah Hayes, piano and electronics
Christos Michalakos, drums and electronics
Martin Parker, electronics
Mike Svoboda, trombone
Lauren and Christos were both still PhD students of mine at the time. They’ve since graduated and gone on to have great careers, I’m glad to say. Martin was a colleague and fellow lapslap member. All three and myself were also edimpro members.
Of course, trombonist/composer/band leader extraordinaire Mike Svoboda hardly needs an introduction. One of the greatest living interpreters of contemporary trombone music, I’ve known him since a Klanforum Wien project we did together in Vienna back in 2000. It’s always a pleasure to see him but an even greater one to play with him. Just listen to that sound, that invention, at the beginning and throughout this release. Stupendous.
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