Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra

The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra a British formation in the field of free jazz and new improvisation music , which was founded in 2002.

The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra is directed by saxophonist Raymond MacDonald . It intends to place improvisation in the context of a larger formation and to work with completely free ensemble improvisations or in workshop form, but also with orchestrated and MacDonald-led ensemble passages; Models are the Globe Unity Orchestra and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra . The GIO musician collective, which essentially consists of Glasgow musicians, has worked with guest musicians such as Michel Doneda , Maggie Nicols , Tatsuya Nakatani , Catriona MacKay , Alisdair MacDonald , George Lewis and Evan Parker and on projects with Barry Guy , Harry Beckett , Keith Tippett , Keith Rowe and Günter Sommer together.

They performed at the Aberdeen Sound Festival, with the silent film project Menschen am Sonntag (with guest musicians Birgit Ulher (trumpet) and Clayton Thomas (bass)), the Glasgow International Jazz Festival together with Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura and a composition for the orchestra by Satoko Fujii. In 2007 they performed at the Freedom of the City Festival .

Discographic notes

With Evan Parker: Munich and Glasgow ( FMR Records , 2004)
Which Way Did he go (FMR Records, 2005) with Maggie Nichols
Falkirk (FMR Records, 2005), with Barry Guy
London & Glasgow Improvisers Orchestras Separately & Together (Emanem, 2007)
GIO Poetics (Creative Sources, 2007)
Metamorphic Rock (orram, 2009), with George Lewis
Floating - Aye, But Can Ye? (Maya, 2009), with Barry Guy
Improcherto (For HB) By George Burt (Iorram Records, 2012), with Lol Coxhill and Evan Parker
Parallel Moments Unbroken (featuring Marilyn Crispell & Evan Parker) (FMR, 2019)