THE Hullabaloo Festival is a two-day celebration of improvisation, spontaneity and creativity.

The Festival explores improvisation in music, in the other arts and also in life, ‘how we make it up as we go along’.

Hullabaloo will be fun, unpredictable and provocative, exploring the mysteries and paradoxes of ways of making music and sound that combine simple playfulness and skill.

The festival is based at the based at the CIC Centre in Taunton and features some of the South Wests’ finest improvisers along with local musicians and artists.

These musicians include the classically influenced singer Jenny Bliss, violinist Yvonna Magda, local drum and bass producer Jon Cooke and sculptor Michael Fairfax.

The festival also invites people to join in the fun, with a special afternoon event called Spontaneous Combustion, a ‘workshop’ encouraging people to find their own creative spontaneity and play with sound, movement, drawing, film, words. Spontaneous Combustion will be a space for a healthy dash of organised chaos.

At the festivals core is Hullabaloo, an improvising orchestra that has been meeting for over a year at the CIC and giving its debut performance on November 17, along with special guests.

These guests include local actor/director Ged Stephenson, guitarist Matthew Grigg, double bassist Dominic Lash and flautist Tina Hitchens. There will also be contributions from local artists and film makers. Dom Lash is one of the countries’ leading double bass players, John Fordham in the Guardian praised his Explosive bass strumming.

The festival will start with a solo performance, discussion and digression by festival organiser Tim Hill called ‘off the top of my head’. Hullabaloo Festival of Improvisation. November 17-18 at CIC Creative Innovation Centre. Memorial Hall, Paul St, Taunton

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