The influential guitarist and luminary improviser Derek Bailey wrote that "Some of the greatest opportunities provided by free improvisation are in the exploration of the relationships between players. In this respect solo improvisation doesn't make any sense at all."

For Bailey, and for many others, solo playing is about re-thinking one's musical language by putting their personal vocabulary under a kind of microscope. On Saturday afternoon, we will put six of Toronto's finest improvisers under the microscope of solo performance and invite each of them to take part in a roundtable discussion about that process. Our host, Joe Sorbara, will take on the task of teasing out the particulars of each player's approach to improvising in a solo context as well as igniting the differences and similarities among a diverse group of highly individualised musical minds.


Drummer and percussionist, composer and improviser, educator and organizer, Joe Sorbara has been engaged in creative music making in Toronto since the late '90s. Joe has worked extensively as a workshop facilitator and guest lecturer at the University of Toronto, the Royal Conservatory of Music, Humber College, Carleton University, and elsewhere. He began teaching in the Music Department at the University of Guelph in 2007. There, he works with young drummers in the applied music program as well as directing a large ensemble known as the CME. At home in Toronto, he teaches privately and occasionally through the Regent Park School of Music where, most notably, he taught John Zorn's Cobra to young musicians and helped develop a bucket drumming class and a nonsense orchestra for an expansion project at Queen Victoria Public School in Parkdale. Sorbara holds an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music from York University in Toronto and is currently working on an MA in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph with a focus in critical improvisation studies, literary and cultural theory, and pedagogy.

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