Please join us on Wednesday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m. (ET) for the series premier of Live @ImprovLab, featuring the Susanna Hood Trio and Sarah Belle Reid in an inspiring double bill. This performance hosted by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) will take place in person at ImprovLab, MacKinnon 108 at the University of Guelph.

Tickets are $15 or pay what you can (by donation) and available online through IICSI’s Eventbrite page. While tickets will be made available at the door, attendees are encouraged to reserve tickets ahead of time.

The double bill will be preceded by a panel discussion moderated by Marie Zimmerman in which the artists will contextualize the work they will be presenting, and share insights about the role that improvisation plays in what they do.

More about the event:

IICSI’s new Live @ImprovLab concert and performance series serves to showcase touring artists working in a variety of improvisatory idioms. Curated by IICSI Director Dr. Ajay Heble (Founder and former Artistic Director of the Guelph Jazz Festival and 2023 Killam Prize winner), the new series, says Heble,“aims to celebrate live improvised performances and to spotlight our beautiful new venue.”

Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal-based bandleader and vocalist-dancer, Susanna Hood, along with the superb Tkaronto/Toronto-based musicians, Tania Gill (piano) and Kayla Milmine (soprano saxophone) bring poet Judith Malina and composer Steve Lacy’s 1995 “Packet” suite to life through sound and movement. These audacious new arrangements blur the lines between what is heard and what is seen. Heart-felt, yet unsentimental, these eight songs hold no punches as they bring voice to a woman’s later life, grappling with imperfection, sexism, paradox, grit, beauty, regret, invisibility, death, and love.

In Sarah Belle Reid’s improvisations and compositions, musical notation is often experimental and graphical—an invitation to explore a new sonic universe. This spirit for exploration has led her to collaborate with musicians and artists of all genres, including experimental electronic musician David Rosenboom, thereminist Carolina Eyck, and baroque-pop artist Julia Holter. Reid recorded trumpet and electronics on Holter’s 2019 record Aviary, and recently wrapped up an extensive tour throughout North America, Europe, and Australia as a member of her band. Reid’s own compositions have been premiered and performed by a number of renowned musicians, most recently pianist Vicki Ray and trumpeter Nate Wooley. In 2017 her composition “Flux” for amplified percussion quartet won the Grammy-nominated Los Angeles Percussion Quartet’s Next Wave Composer Initiative.