Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra has explored a range of approaches, from free improvisation and graphic scores to conduction and telematic performance via video calls. Generous collaborators, they’ve worked with free music legends such as Maggie Nicols, George Lewis, Evan Parker and Pat Thomas, while inviting poets, visual artists and filmmakers into the fold.
Now in its seventeenth year, GIOfest is a highlight of the Scottish music calendar, with local and international friends joining the group in a celebration of improvisation. With players drawn from a range of musical (and non-musical) backgrounds, GIO has always looked beyond the worlds of jazz and improvisation for inspiration, and this month’s festival highlights artists from Indonesia, Japan, and Sri Lanka, with a special focus on special focus on Gamelan music. GIO will be joined by Glasgow-based ensemble Gamelan Maga Nas and members of the Indonesian collective Perempuan Komponis, Gema Swaratyagita, Dinar Rizkianti, Arum Dayu, and Nadya Hatta.
“The Gamelan has been central to my work as an improvising musician for over 30 years,” explains GIO co-founder Raymond MacDonald. A saxophonist and composer, MacDonald has worked with David Byrne, Jim O’Rourke, Gunter “Baby” Sommer, Bill Wells and Alasdair Roberts. The set of instruments used by Gamelan Maga Nas were built in Indonesia and shipped to Glasgow in 1990, the very time MacDonald had started doing community music. “The company I was working with, Limelight (then called Strathclyde Orchestral Productions), became the custodians of the gamelan. These early community music experiments led to my PhD and evaluating the use of gamelan for music education and therapy purposes for people with learning difficulties.
“By sheer coincidence one of the GIO ensemble, Maria Sappho, has been collaborating with an Indonesian ensemble Perempuan Komponis, a collective association founded on the principle of solidarity among women and non-binary composers in Indonesia. One member of that ensemble happened to mention to Maria that her father, over 30 years ago, built the Glasgow Gamelan! Perempuan Komponis will also be our guests at the festival, and we all collaborate together. Gordon Dougall, the founder of Limelight, will also be our guest at a discussion session at the festival.”
A longtime friend of GIO, legendary vocal improviser Maggie Nicols returns to the GIO stage, bringing her unique vocabulary of extended techniques, invented languages, folk song fragments and jazz standards. Japanese trombonist Yasuko Kaneko, a collaborator with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fuji, also returns, while acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter Debbie Armour (one half of the experimental folk group Burd Ellen) makes her first appearance at GIOfest. GIO will also be collaborating Sri Lanakan sound artist Isuru Kumarasinghe on a new piece, and Dilli Improvisers Orchestra will perform with MacDonald. There will also be a premier of new work from international online group GIOglobal, in a hybrid telematic performance connecting artists across continents in real time.
GIO guitarist George Burt is an undersung hero of UK improvisation, combining the atonal scrabble of the Derek Bailey school with a playful Caledonian anarchism that might see him referencing folk tunes one moment and conjuring vaporous chords with a volume pedal the next. At this year’s GIOfest, he presents a new workcelebrating the late great pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn, with whom he performed on a number of occasions. Paying homage to Alcorn’s visionary bridging of jazz, avant-garde and Americana, Burt weaves lyrical improvisation with rich harmonic textures.
This year’s GIOfest also presents the first George Lyle Commission. A pioneer of free music in Scotland, Lyle was first call bassist for visiting musicians from the 1970s onwards. In the 1990s, he connected with Burt and MacDonald, leading to the formation of GIO. Up to his death in 2016, Lyle remained a singularly adventurous musician, collaborating with the legendary free jazz saxophonist Sonny Simmons and forming an inspired duo with fellow GIO member Fritz Welch. For this inaugural commission, composer and bassist Armin Sturm will create a powerful new work, breathing new life into Lyle’s own bass.
In addition to short films, a public discussion of community art practices and the launch of GIO’s new album with the Australian Art Orchestra, 20/20, the festival will host the GIObabies improvisation workshop for children under five and a Gamelan workshop exploring the metallophones and Indonesian vocal techniques. This year’s Small Groups session, where selected musicians are brought together in ad hoc formations, is curated by music sociologist and ethnographer Tia DeNora.
“This festival is a celebration of improvisation as a global, inclusive, and transformative art form,” says MacDonald. “By connecting artists across borders and disciplines, we’re creating something truly unique: an improvisational space that speaks to community, resistance, and radical imagination.”
GIOfest XVII, takes place at CCA Glasgow between Thursday 20 – Saturday 22 November. Find out more and buy tickets here
