Collaborations/Projects
Free improv presents an ultimate test for any musician. It requires a total commitment to live in the moment while being acutely sensitive to, and mindful of, the other players and listening carefully in order to find one’s place in what is inevitably an ambiguous sonic situation as it unfolds, develops and ends as a completed piece.
Marbyllia
Marbyllia is an improvising duo with Margaret Maria (cello) and Bill Gilliam (piano). We began our project with our “Uncountable Spheres” album launch performance at Annette Studios in Toronto, Dec 2022 . Margaret is a former cellist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and VSO. Bill is a Toronto composer, pianist, improvisor who studied at Berklee College of Music.
Counterstasis
Gilliam, Hall, and Sorbara draw on a wide variety of traditional and extended techniques and employ both conventional and bent approaches to melodicism, groove, and chromatic harmony. Their music is expanded by Hall’s real-time triggering and processing of his wind instruments using a sound design workstation by Kyma as well as OMax artificial intelligence improvising software and a CataRT Audio Mosaic Concatenative Synthesis program; both from the Paris-based research institute, IRCAM.
Art of Improv
“The Art of Improv is a series launched in 2023 by musicians Bill Gilliam and Eugene Martynec. Their goal is to invite artists with distinctive approaches to improvisation to join them for an evening of collaboration. Their partnership was inspired by their time in the Toronto Improvisers Orchestra, after which they decided to focus on working with smaller groups in duos and trios. They began by inviting artists with a unique vision of improvisation. Annette Studios provides the perfect setting: a fine piano, a dance floor, and space for about forty people. They present concerts three or four times a year.
Gilliam, Milmine, Pottie
Our trio, with Kayla Milmine (soprano sax), Ambrose Pottie (drums) & myself on piano, has been performing spontaneous inventions and composed jazz pieces since 2015.
Gilliam, Martynec, McBirnie
A collaboration between pianist Bill Gilliam, flutist Bill McBirnie, and electroacoustic artist Eugene Martynec who are performers / composers with different musical backgrounds of improvised new music, electroacoustic sound creation and jazz. This trio shares a strong, sympathetic commitment to free improvising, as well as a mutual fascination with the mystery of creating spontaneous compositions.
Penn Kemp
My collaboration with sound poet Penn Kemp has been happening for many decades including many recordings and performances together.
Memory Vision
A DVD project of solo electroacoustic music with videos made in collaboration with different videographers