Saturday 6 April. Live performance 8pm, £5. Music Masterclass 4-6pm, free.

A live performance event featuring guitar legend Daevid Allen of Gong and Soft Machine, and avant-garde jazz pioneer Marshall Allen of Sun Ra Arkestra. Plus a music Masterclass. 

Cinema Soloriens is a live audio visual performance of American film-maker and musician James Harrar's experimental films, with live musical renderings performed by Harrar (tenor sax, flute, bulbul tarang, reeds, voice and effects), Marshall Allen (alto sax, flute, keyboards, EVI and effects), Daevid Allen (guitar, voice & effects), and Rogier Smal (percussion & electronics). The performance encompasses psychedelic rock, outre ethnological improvisations and Marshall Allen approved jazzy stomps.

As part of this event, the ensemble will provide a free Masterclass to artists and musicians, sharing the jazz improv techniques honed by these musical legends over many years. Full details here.

Daevid Allen is avant-rock's guitar legend and one of the founders of the British progressive rock band, Soft Machine. After Soft Machine, he became the founder/leader of Gong. He continues to release numerous live sets and one-off collaborations in limited editions on various independent labels under his own and various group names. Said Daevid, "this is a time of great changes, and we will be offering some real outer-space surprises;  so happy and honored to be working with these guys-finally playing with Marshall after all these years, I mean who hasn't he and Sun Ra influenced!"

During the mid-1950's, Marshall Allen met Sun Ra and became a devoted student of his musical cosmology. After joining the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1958, Marshall Allen led Sun Ra's reed section for over 40 years. He is featured on over 200 Sun Ra releases, while appearing as special guest soloist in concert and on recordings with diverse groups such as NRBQ, Phish, Sonic Youth, and Medeski, Martin & Wood.  Allen assumed the helm of the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1995 after the ascension of Sun Ra in 1993 and John Gilmore in 1995.

James Harrar began as a filmmaker, crafting densely lyrical film-poems since the late 1980’s exhibiting at  venues including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Andy Warhol Museum and Yamaguchi Center for Art & Media to name a few. In an intimate form, Harrar attempts to imprint thoughts, dreams and conceptual ideas onto the open-minded viewer while examining the possibilities of perception. Throughout his career, Harrar has tried to give the viewer new visual experiences while challenging fixed notions of filmic language and individual seeing. Since 1995 Harrar has been collaborating with Marshall Allen, creating live music to Harrar’s silent films which often include archive footage of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Rogier Smal is a drummer who experiments with free percussion sounds. Besides playing in improv group Dagora he plays with different musicians and solo. Smal tries to find the energy of space and participants while remaining open to the environment and acoustics. Lately he has been been making sonic waves of liberty with gems like: Anne la Berge, Peter Quistgard, Jaap Blonk, James Harrar, Yedo Gibson, Marshall Allen, Dagora, Ti Femme, Dylan Carlson, Eugene Chadbourne, Geoff Leigh, Peter Zincken, Frankie Vis, Peter van Bergen, Ludo Mich, City Hands, Raoul van der Weide, Sunburned hand of the man, Eric Thielemans, Mik Quantius, John Moloney, Cathy Heyden, Alfredo Genovesi, Arvind Ganga, and many more...

Youtube footage of the performance, here.