Performers
Event Details
Ben Grossman will be teaching a workshop for classical musicians new to free improvisation on the afternoon of Saturday October 26 from 2 – 4 p.m., at the Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Avenue, Toronto.
This workshop isn’t about jazz or how to play over changes, it’s not about how to ornament a tune or play a cadenza – it’s about using your instruments and voices to explore new ways of sounding and new sonic possibilities. Shake off habits, and find new relationships to your body, instrument, and the sounds and musicians around you. If you’re a player or singer whose feet haven’t yet dipped into the waters of free improvisation – COME ON DOWN!
BEN GROSSMAN is a busy musician and sound artist: improviser, studio musician, composer, and noisemaker. He works in many fields, having played on over 100 CDs, soundtracks for film and television, composition and sound design for theatre, dance, installations, work designed for radio transmission, and live performances spanning early medieval music to experimental electronics.
Ben's tools of choice are electronics, percussion, and especially, the vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy), a contemporary electro-acoustic string instrument with roots in the European middle ages. Through extended techniques, and sometimes electronic processing, Ben seeks to use it as a physical interface into sound creation, spontaneous composition and the exploration of acoustics, form and extended aesthetics. www.macrophone.org