Live in Munich Jordina Millà & Barry Guy

• 1 Part I (Live) 22:50
• 2 Part II (Live) 10:11
• 3 Part III (Live) 03:59
• 4 Part IV (Live) 08:10
• 5 Part V (Live) 11:30
• 6 Part VI (Live) 04:20
• Total Runtime 01:01:00

Info for Live in Munich

This concert recording from Munich’s Schwere Reiter performance space features improvisation with an expanded palette of possibilities. “To work with these colours is a great challenge and joy!” says bassist Barry Guy of the glowing and ever-changing tints, timbres and tones radiating from Jordina Millà’s freely associative piano. Like Guy, Millà is both a player of prodigious technical capacity and a fearless improvisational explorer, and her highly creative use of the piano interior opens up new sonic territory, to fascinating result.

This live recording, from Munich’s Schwere Reiter hall, documents the debut concert performance by the duo of Catalan pianist Jordina Millà and British bassist Barry Guy. Together they they shape fluid, highly detailed music, of ever changing mood, and cast fresh light on the meaning and possibilities of “extended technique” in free improvisation.

The musicians first crossed paths at Barcelona’s Mixtur Festival in 2017 where Guy was composer-in-residence, creating a piece together with a mixed festival ensemble of professionals and students. Millà, as one of the pianists in the group, immediately stood out for her “commitment, energy, virtuosity and creativity,” and a musical friendship was established.

Guy and Millà went on to record a studio album together, String Fables, for the Polish label Fundacja Słuchaj in 2021. Live In Munich represents a major advance in its depth of sound and range of expression, with remarkable clarity even at moments of most intense activity.

In characterizing their swirling, undulating sound, Jordina Millà draws analogies with the movements of the sea, “so full of life and dark at the same time, a change of light making the treasures and wonders visible.” In the duo, “heightened listening and sensibility allowed colours and sudden changes to be perceived, expressed and established in the musical discourse.”

Barry Guy, renowned for his improvisational capacity to reveal the full sonorous potential of the double bass, is well-partnered here by Millà, who – in addition to her formidable keyboard skills – is opening up a new world of sound with her inventive explorations of the piano interior, drawing arresting textures and glistening harmonics from its harp of strings. “To work with these colours,” says Barry Guy, “is a great challenge and joy!”

After studying classical and contemporary music in Rotterdam and Paris and playing in diverse chamber groups, Jordina Millà was guided towards the improvisers’ world by Agustì Fernandez, éminence grise of the Spanish free scene, who has been a mentor and a supporter of her work. Fernandez was quick to note the originality of Millà’s approach, writing in 2018: “We feel Jordina breathe through the piano. How does she manage to create dreamlike atmospheres, travel landscapes that are so suggestive and gorgeous, energetic and sweet at the same time…?”

In addition to her work in improvisation, Jordina Millà is active in several dance and theatre projects, including Tide Mountains, a new collaboration with choreographers Roberta Legros and Julyen Hamilton.

Jordina Millà, piano
Barry Guy, double bass

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Booklet for Live in Munich