The pianist Bobby Mitchell opens the festival with his initiative, Kickstart the Classical! – featuring improvised relationships to standard keyboard repertoire from Schumann and Chopin to Brahms.
Cosmo Sheldrake is a master looper and multi-instrumentalist, who performs on banjo, loop station, keyboards, double bass, drums, didgeridoo, penny whistle, sousaphone and more. An avid improviser, he draws on numerous and disparate musical traditions from Mongolia to West Africa, blues to classical and folk to Balkan brass.
(i=u festival celebrates musical improvisation with dance, art, theatre and film.)