Saturday 12 September | 9:15pm | Royal City Mission
François Houle . clarinets, electronics
Gordon Grdina . oud and guitars
Myra Melford . piano
Joelle Léandre . double bass
Gerry Hemingway . drums, vibraphone
Clarinetist, composer, and improviser François Houle presents a suite of compositions and arrangements inspired by British author Kassia St. Clair’s book “The Secret Lives of Colour”. From ivory to obsidian, Houle explores the colour spectrum and its close historical connections to music, weaving a rich and suggestive tapestry of sounds.
“Reading these stories and historical facts surrounding colours made me think immediately about how colours play a significant role in the arts, and in particular ways musicians use them to describe music. The music for this project draws from this symbiotic connection to convey a sense of what I hear and feel when I read these stories.” FH
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The Secret Lives of Colour also finds a definitive visual chronicle at the 2026 Guelph Jazz Festival through Chromascope, an immersive on-site creative documentary project by classical photographer and artist Lara L. Hill.
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Clarinetist François Houle has established himself as one of today’s most inventive musicians, in all of the diverse musical spheres he embraces. Inspired by collaborations with the world’s top musical innovators, François has developed a unique improvisational language, virtuosic and rich with sonic embellishment and technical extensions. He has worked with Dave Douglas, Mark Dresser, Joëlle Léandre, Benoît Delbecq, Evan Parker, Samuel Blaser, Gerry Hemingway, Marilyn Crispell, Myra Melford, René Lussier, Alexander Hawkins, John Butcher, Kris Davis, Georg Graewe, Håvard Wiik, Guillermo Gregorio, Eyvind Kang, Hasse Poulsen, and many of Canada and the International scene’s top creative music artists.
His extensive touring has led to solo appearances at major festivals across Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. A prolific recording artist, he has released over twenty recordings as a leader, earning multiple Juno Award and West Coast Music Award nominations. He is the founder of Afterday Audio, a record label dedicated to the documentation and dissemination of his many musical projects and collaborations.
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Gordon Grdina is a JUNO Award winning oud/guitarist whose career has spanned continents, decades, and constant genre exploration throughout avant-garde jazz, free form improvisation, contemporary indie rock, and Arabic music. His singular approach to his instruments has earned him recognition from the highest ranks of the jazz and improvised music world. Grdina has performed and collaborated with a wide array of field-leading artists including Gary Peacock, Paul Motion, Marc Ribot, Mark Helias, Mats Gustafsson, Hank Roberts, Mark Feldman, Eyvind Kang, Mat Maneri, Christian Lilinger, Matt Mitchell, and Jim Black.
Gerry Hemingway has been creating and performing solo and ensemble music since 1974. He has led a number of quartet & quintets since the mid 80’s as well as being a member of a wide array of collaborative groups including BassDrumBone (who celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2017), Brew w/ Reggie Workman & Miya Masaoka, a trio with Georg Graewe & Ernst Reijseger, the Switzerland-based WHO trio with Michel Wintsch and Bänz Oester, Tree Ear with Sebastian Strinning and Manuel Troller, as well as numerous duo projects with Izumi Kimura, Marilyn Crispell, Samuel Blaser, Thomas Lehn, John Butcher, Ellery Eskelin, Jin-Hi Kim, a o. Mr. Hemingway is a Guggenheim fellow and has received numerous commissions for chamber and orchestral works. He is well known for his eleven years in the Anthony Braxton Quartet, his ongoing participation in projects with Reggie Workman including the collective trio Brew, along with his work with some of the world’s most outstanding improvisers and composers including Cecil Taylor, Mark Dresser, Anthony Davis, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Frank Gratkowski, Simon Nabatov and many others. He currently lives in Switzerland having joined the faculty of the Hochschule Luzern between 2009 and 2022.
Joëlle Léandre is a French double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation. Born in Aix-en-Provence, France, Joëlle is regarded as one of Europe’s most gifted and versatile avant garde bassists. Trained in orchestral as well as contemporary music, she has played with l’Itinéraire, 2e2m, and Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble Intercontemporain. Joëlle Léandre has also worked with Merce Cunningham and with John Cage, who has composed especially for her – as have Scelsi, Fénelon, Hersant, Lacy, Campana, Jolas, Clementi, and nearly 40 other composers.
As well as working in contemporary music, Léandre has played with some of the great names in jazz and improvisation, such as Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Irene Schweizer, William Parker, Barre Phillips, Pascal Contet, Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, Peter Kowald, Urs Leimgruber, Mat Maneri, Roy Campbell, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Mark Naussef, Marilyn Crispell, India Cooke, and so many others… Joëlle has written extensively for dance and theater, and has staged a number of multidisciplinary performances. Her work as a composer and a performer, both in solo recitals and a part of ensembles, has put her under the lights of the most prestigious stages of Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Pianist, composer, bandleader and educator Myra Melford—whom the New Yorker called “a stalwart of the new-jazz movement”—has spent the last three decades making brilliant original music that is equally challenging and engaging. Culling inspiration from a wide range of sources including Cecil Taylor, the blues and boogie-woogie of her native Chicago, the poetry of Rumi, the AACM and yoga, she’s explored an array of formats, among them ruminative solo-piano recitals, deeply interactive combos and ambitious multidisciplinary programs. Since debuting on record as a bandleader in 1990, she’s built a discography of more than 20 albums as a leader or co-leader, and has collaborated with such luminaries as Dave Douglas, Marty Ehrlich, Liberty Ellman, Erik Friedlander, Ben Goldberg, Joseph Jarman, Leroy Jenkins, Ron Miles, Nicole Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, Chris
Speed, Stomu Takeishi, Cuong Vu and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Melford’s teachers and mentors include Butch Morris, Henry Threadgill, Jaki Byard, Don Pullen and other icons of jazz postmodernism, and she has received some of the most prestigious honors available to an improvising musician: numerous DownBeat poll placings, a 2000 Fulbright scholarship, a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music and, in 2013, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts.
