Tickets are now available for the next Listening Session on Sunday 6 July at 6.30pm at Old Witta School, 316 Witta Rd, Witta, hearing from three musicians,
Leo Dale (Tenor sax), Tunji Beier (South Indian and other percussion) and Linsey Pollak (bass clarinet and self created woodwind instruments).
“I’ve invited Leo Dale (Tenor sax) to travel up from Melbourne to join Tunji Beier and myself for this Listening Session,“ Linsey said.
“Leo is a beautiful musician and an audio and video producer. He collaborates with musicians in Australia and India to produce recordings and videos for the concert series ’From Now OM’. He is also an accomplished improvisor and for this reason he has been invited to travel from Melbourne for Listening Session no. 6. As in his Melbourne concerts he will be creating the drone that we improvise over using multiple layers of his voice.“
At the age of 10 Tunji Beier was studying Yoruba drumming in Nigeria. Six years later he travelled to Bangalore in South India to study percussion for three years at the Karnakata College of Percussion under the mentorship of Mr TAS Mani. This intense period of study enables Tunji to bring his mastery of the mridangam, kanjira, ghatam and morsing to a huge variety of projects with musicians such as Charlie Mariano, Bill Cobham, T.A.S.Mani, R.A.Ramamani, Trilok Gurtu, and Zakir Hussain.
Linsey is well known all around Australia as a musician, instrument maker, composer, musical director and community music facilitator.
’The Listening Sessions’ invite the audience into the collective musical mind of a group of musicians to experience an extended improvisation. This process focuses on really listening, an essential element of creating music in the moment. The audience is invited to listen in the same way and experience this creative journey that the musicians are making together. The musicians will create 80 minutes of new music by listening deeply to each other while improvising over a drone. Nothing will have been written or rehearsed beforehand. Nothing will have been discussed about the unfolding music except to choose the pitch of the drone that will be the foundation upon which the musicians build their music. It is this ‘process’ of creating the music rather than the ‘product of the completed composition that is given precedence. In this way The Listening Sessions redefine music as a process rather than a commodity.
