GIOfest XIV - Joëlle Léandre 

Joëlle Léandre has been an upright bass player of formidable renown for several decades at this stage – a major figure in European improvisation with a stunning track record of collaborations that includes everyone from John Cage and Merce Cunningham, Derek Bailey, John Zorn, Sylvie Courvoisier, Evan Parker and our own Maggie Nicols. As she famously put it herself: “Bass players are quite unusual, quite often angry. I am an angry player. I have this utopia vision. I want art to change the world. It’s impossible just to be a musician and say “oh, life is nice.” Life is not nice. Life is hard and to play the bass is hard.”