Gino Robair

Event information

San Francisco percussionist Gino Robair comes to OTO to present an evening of new music solo and in a trio, and quintet with five of London's more adventurous instrumentalists.

Robair - "Singular Pleasures"
Butcher / Edwards / Robair - "Hunting, Dodging, Leading"

Bohman, Brand, Burn, Robair - "Buzzing and Breaking"
Bohman, Brand, Burn, Butcher, Edwards, Robair - "Osu Hiku"

GINO ROBAIR - drums/percussion

Gino Robair is a San Francisco Bay Area-based percussionist and composer who has performed and recorded with Anthony Braxton, Tom Waits, John Butcher, LaDonna Smith, Otomo Yoshihide, Eugene Chadbourne, John Zorn, Nina Hagen, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Myra Melford, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, and the Club Foot Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Splatter Trio and Pink Mountain.

Check out Gino Robair's opera, I, Norton, which is based on the life of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.

Gino Robair "...holds the listener captive as he oscillates between the accidental and the intentional; between the tiniest, most delicate noise and a torrential outpouring of sound." - San Francisco Bay Guardian

"Robair is an enormously talented percussionist, with a thorough-going musicality and an instinct for the unexpected." - The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD

"Robair has taken the notion of open-ended improv to its logical endgame; milking maximum-impact rhythms from the most unlikely sources." - Jazziz

JOHN BUTCHER - saxophones

John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of harmonics, multiphonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. But his playing is far more than merely an array of special effects; it's characterised by a drive and intensity that propels music into strange new places that are both incredibly beautiful and deeply exhilarating.

“In the hands of London improvisor John Butcher, the saxophone can sound like anything, from a peice of hollowed out brass baubled with pads and valves to a hern metically sealed feedback system, a minature sound enviroment teeming with ever-evolving note forms, or a huge echo chamber inflicting dub scale damage on every breath . . .” - David Keenan, The Wire

JOHN EDWARDS - double bass

John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, John Wall, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, and many others.

ADAM BOHMAN - objects

“As a free improviser Adam Bohman has pretty much everything required for the job. He weilds an armoury of soundmaking devices - a disassembled violin, springs, lightbulbs, a barbecue grill, a wire record rack, a wooden box with wires stretched across - and creates a post-serial slipstream of variegated events, where more detail is pressed into a split second than ought to be allowed.” - The WIRE

GAIL BRAND - trombone

Born in London, 1971, Gail has been a trombonist since the age of 9. A former student at Middlesex University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she is a commissioned composer and has performed on the international jazz and improvising scene since the early 1990s.

Past and present collaborators include , Billy Jenkins, Mark Sanders, Morgan Guberman, Elton Dean, Phil Minton, Pat Thomas, Lol Coxhill, Veryan Weston, Oren Marshall, Maggie Nichols, Luc Ex and countless others.

CHRIS BURN - piano

As an improvisor, Chris Burn has forged a unique style of piano playing by developing a multitude of alternative techniques, both on the keyboard and inside the instrument. One of the earliest and most accomplished exponents of 'inside piano' playing, Burn is constantly uncovering new sounds from the belly of the instrument. Since emerging in a duo with John Butcher in the early 1980's, he has played and recorded with virtually all the major names in improvised music in Europe. For his work in composition he was shortlisted for a Paul Hamlyn award in 1993. He is also known for his performances of the piano music of Henry Cowell, John Cage and other contemporary composers.