Sunday, May 15 – IMOO #142: Shortest Longest Day

***NOTE: SPECIAL LOCATION – House of Common (11b Fairmont Avenue – off Wellington)***

Alex Pelchat: guitar
Stéphane Diamantakiou: doublebass
Paul Serralheiro: Trumpet
Ivan Bamford: Percussion

Alex Pelchat is a guitarist active in Montreal’s experimental music scene. He has spent the last few years dedicating himself entirely to improvisation. He plays with various free jazz ensembles as well as noise and rock groups. He is currently playing with *Shining Wizard*, Leftovers Diable, Drøm Før Du Dør, Ninja Simone, Gens Chrétiens, the Total Improvisation Troop, and Shortest Longest Day. With *Shining Wizard*, Pelchat has toured the American East Coast and released a warmly-received first album, No Room For. As a solo artist and as a member of Leftover Diable, he has performed at Massachusetts’ XFEST.

Alex is equally influenced by the heavy sounds of Keiji Haino, Dylan Carlson, and Buzz Osbourne, and the unpredictable and energetic playing of Anthony Braxton, John Zorn and Arto Lindsay. Aside from playing with different groups, he is also involved in the organization of experimental music series such as noïsundaéè, Mardi Spaghetti, and Nuit des Solos. His modus operandi as a musician and as an organizer is to facilitate the meeting of different musical genres and to explore diverse approaches to creation.

Stéphane Diamantakiou is an electric and double bassist, born in Marseille (France). His self-taught beginnings on electric bass and his first bands and compositions led him to study double bass and jazz at the Aix-en-Provence Conservatory of Music. He finished in 2006 and obtained First Prize in his graduating class.

Starting with street theatre performances with Générik Vapeur at the Roque d’Anthéron Classical Music Festival, Stéphane went on to work with classical orchestras, theatre companies and diverse rock and jazz formations as an instrumentalist and as an arranger and composer. These projects gave him the opportunity to tour France and Europe and to share the stage with renowned bands such as Gong and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. During this time, Stéphane met Barre Philips, who conveyed his vision of spontaneous creation. This encounter was a significant moment in the development of his personal language and his practice of free improvisation.

With the goal of enriching his musical practice, Stéphane came to Montreal in the summer of 2011. He is now a member of several bands, on stage and in the studio (Rubedo’ro, FeeFawFum, Heirloom and Shortest Longest Day). In particular he has very quickly integrated himself in the Montreal jazz and improvisation scene. Through these encounters he has co-founded several projects, such as the free jazz quartet ‘L’appel du vide’ and duo ‘Eguiluz-Diamantakiou’.

Paul Serralheiro was a founding member of the Montreal free jazz quartet NUDE, and has played trumpet in various settings, including a group of North African Musicians during Le festivale du monde Arab, the poly-cultural Montreal Musicians of the World Symphony Orchestra and Shortest Longest Day. He has recorded with Vancouver’s Carnival Band and with the Total Improvisation Troup led by composers Paulo Ferreira Lopes and Karoline Leblanc. He has been a guest on projects by artists on the Montreal creative music scene such as Artsy Chicks and Ninja Simone.

His influences have been the blues, fado, and jazz, as well as the European musical tradition from Guillaume de Machaut to romantic, post-romantic and modern symphonic literature, some of which he performed as second trumpet in the MMWSO.

A graduate of Concordia University’s music school, Paul has been a frequent participant in workshops on creative music led by musicians such as Marshall Allen, William Parker, Joe McPhee, Coat Cooke, Fred Bazil, Ig Henneman, and Jean Derome and has organized concerts of impromptu groups of improvising musicians.

Percussionist Ivan Bamford first remembers encountering music at 3 years old in his native Vancouver. At 19 he abandoned sports to devote his life to music. In the following years he studied with Claude Ranger, Dylan van der Schyff and Pierre Tanguay and received a degree in jazz studies from Capilano University. In Vancouver he played with André Lachance, Bruno Hubert, Alan Matheson and Coat Cooke. He moved to Montreal in 2001 where he found a rich and varied music scene. His music diversified as he played with Gadji-Gadjo, Weshida(Middle Eastern influenced), BAMBAM(improvisation), Straight Pipe(jazz) his own quartet, and Shortest Longest Day . En 2006 he received a travel grant and additional funding to attend the jazz intensive workshop at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He has played in several festivals throughout Québec,(Montreal Jazz Festival 2004-2010, 2013), Vancouver(Vancouver Jazz Festival 1999-2000), Baku Azerbaïdjan(2005), in London and Berlin (with Katya Sourikova 2005, 2011). He has toured France, Romania and North America. In January 2013 he toured Columbia with Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra. In 2009 he received a composer grant with Gadji-Gadjo. He has been teaching drums for the past 10 years.