As our dreich Scottish summer blended into Autumn we turned our attention to improvisation. We welcomed Una MacGlone to take the helm and embraced the freedom and challenges of a new musical language.
Through doing, listening and lots of discussion over ‘what’ and ‘when’ to play, we went through something of a transformation in the way that we played together, emerging out of the other side with a short but quality programme to perform at GIO Fest V in November 2012.
Some thoughts from Andrew, Ellen and Adam:
“I really enjoy improvising, the freedom to play what you want instead of the notes in front of you”.
“Doing It is less stressful than thinking about it – the anticipation is stressful, but doing it is….it comes to you. You don’t think about it and it comes to you, but you also need to listen to everyone else, how fast and slow they’re going, how quietly. You can support what they’re doing.
“It’s really good – I enjoy it.”
Aside from playing, the joy of taking part in the festival was watching and learning from other performances, which we found inspiring and thought-provoking.
Many thanks to everyone at GIOFest V for welcoming us into the festival!