Recording: Toronto Improvisers Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisers Orchestra

Songs: Non-pitched sounds/Rod's conduction

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), February 8, 2026.

Toronto Improvisers Orchestra - Non-pitched sounds

Toronto Improvisers Orchestra - Rod's conduction

February's version of the TIO required the wide-angle lens to capture, with a circle of seven musicians sharing sounds. These selections (which run directly one into another) show a couple of the techniques at play in their performances. At a suggestion from the group, the first part is an exploration of non-pitched sounds on everyone's instrument. Once that idea was poked at from all the different angles, Rod Campbell stood up to conduct a piece, nicely pulling all the sounds back together.

[The TIO are back in action in the Southern Cross at noon next Sunday (March 8th).]

Recording: Toronto Improvisers Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisers Orchestra

Songs: [two pieces]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 11, 2026.

Toronto Improvisers Orchestra - [1st set, short piece]

Toronto Improvisers Orchestra - [2nd set, last piece]

I entered into the room with this set already in progress — which involved, in this case, Rod Campbell engaged in a discussion with his fellow musicians on possible ways to musically interpret a photograph of a snow-covered tree. Later, there would be some conduction (from Campbell as well as Susanne Farkas) which also involved discussion of how the group used their repertoire of hand signals. Otherwise, as with the second selection here, there were some freely-improvised sounds.

[The TIO is back in action tomorrow (Sunday, February 8th) starting at noon in the Southern Cross.]

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Song: [2nd set excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), July 13, 2025.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [2nd set excerpt]

An air-conditioning failure sent the day's sets in the Southern Cross over into the Tranzac's Main Hall, giving some extra legroom for the TIO's monthly gathering. The crew were out eight-deep on this occasion, with a pair of saxophones adding embellishments to the proceedings, as Rod Campbell directed the proceedings. (He added some spoken word elements as well, which you can hear a little bit in the backgound here, though the microphones were more interested in the guitar and bass vi.)

[The TIO will be back in their usual Tranzac timeslot (and presumably back in the Southern Cross!) at noon on Sunday, August 10th.]

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Song: [2nd set, 2nd piece excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), November 10, 2024.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [2nd set, 2nd piece excerpt]

Although the TIO will play freely when the numbers are low (or when the mood otherwise strikes), when there's a larger group the use of conduction leads the sounds to interesting places. Here, Eugene Martynec was having some computer trouble and took a break from troubleshooting to wrangle the ensemble, pulling things together to move from long tones to pointillistic daubs.

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Song: [2nd set, 2nd piece excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), June 11, 2023.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [2nd set, 2nd piece excerpt]

Out in nonet strength this time, the TIO alternated between free group playing, duos/trios, and conducted pieces — here with Ryan Kinney guiding the ensemble.

[The TIO will be back in the Southern Cross on Sunday (July 9th) in their usual noon to two p.m. timeslot.]

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Song: [set 2, 2nd piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), April 9, 2023.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [set 2, 2nd piece]

A thousand pardons, please, for the lack of photo or any cogent notes from this one — it turns out sometimes when you pop in for a TIO gig on a quiet Easter Sunday, you'll sometimes get asked to come on up and join in, and then you're all distracted from documenting things.

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra

Songs: [two excerpts rom the 2nd set]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), March 12, 2023.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [set 2, 1st piece excerpt]

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [set 2, 2nd piece]

Operating as a sextet (and with a legit horn section!), the TIO broke down into sub-groupings for the first piece here, working around the circle of musicians for a rotating series of duos and trios; the second is an open group piece with some nice textures, held together by Rod Campbell's piano work.

Recording: Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra

Song: [set 2, 2nd piece] [conductor: Diane Roblin]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), October 9, 2022.

Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra - [set 2, 2nd piece]

With the cooler weather bringing out a larger crowd of musicians, the TIO was looking more like, well, an orchestra this time out, with enough bodies on hand that it made sense to add some more structure. Some of that came from a series of shifting duos and trios, but the heart of it was some conduction to co-ordinate the members. Rod Campbell conducted one piece in this set, but for this one, Diane Roblin took over, nearly dancing aross the room as she co-ordinated the note-burtsts, held together throughout with some nice circular vibe-sounds from David Story's MalletKat.

Recording: Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra

Artist: Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra

Song: [second set, first piece excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), August 14, 2022.

Toronto Improvisor's Orchestra - [second set, first piece excerpt]

As easily scalable to forty players as they are to four, it's rather pleasing to drop in on the TIO in one of their pretense-free Sunday afternoon jams at the Tranzac. There were a quartet of regulars out for this one, James Bailey (deconstructed tombone), Colin James Gibson (bass), Ryan Kinney (guitar) and Rod Campbell (trumpet, piano). It was the latter's keyboard work here that pulled this along from some pleasingly sputtering duos into a lyrical group piece. Do make a note to go hang out with this crew on the second Sunday of the month.

Bumping into... Bill Gilliam

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

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How are you? Where are you?

Overall pretty good thanks, still living in Toronto. Like most people I'm finding this period quite challenging especially when the weather got colder.

What have you been up to since March or so?

I did some remote online improv with Coexisdance, hosted by Rapheal Roter, with dancer Yvonne Ng which was great.

I performed online with Doug Van Nort, Glen Hall & Joe Sorbara as well as with Michael Palumbo in his Exit Points Series and also did some jamming online with Kayla Milmine & Ambrose Pottie and others.

In the summer I recorded my spoken word piece called “Vigil” online with Toronto Improvisors Orchestra players. These poems are about different people's perspectives on COVID and the recording is now on Bandcamp. One of these tracks was played on CIUT Electric Sense and BBC 3 heard it and played it later on a show called “Freeness”.

I also had a chance to record some improv tracks for an album together with Bill McBirnie (flute) & Eugene Martynec (laptop) in a studio in September which we are now working on to release sometime next year which we are excited about.

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

In 2020 I've been more focused on writing graphic scores as a new way for me to do old things (such as structured improv). My piece “Vigil” was a fun way to explore this type of score by arranging my poems spoken text as a guide to be accompanied by players using written instructions and some notation to improvise.

I'm working on some new pieces that use more graphic score type notations, symbols and images to be performed by improvising ensembles.

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

Kris Davis is a pianist who really stood out for me in recent months. I saw her perform with Ingrid Laubrock (sax) at the Women From Space Festival in Toronto just before the lockdown in March. It was one of the most inspiring performances I've seen in many years. I've been listening and following her performances online. She is such a wonderful Canadian talent who plays with top level international musicians.

For diversions this summer I visited the outdoor Zim Art collection near Rice Lake, Ontario which had wonderful soapstone sculptures by artists from Zimbabwe and also visited a number of conservation areas around Toronto in the summer to relax in nature.

How are you feeling about 2021?

More optimistic now than earlier in 2020. Despite all the challenges and tragedy, so many people are doing interesting and creative things to cope and adjust to the pandemic. With the virus vaccines now starting to be rolled out I think people will start to feel more encouraged about meeting and going out to concerts and we'll all have a chance to perform again. It'll be great to experience live music again when it is safe.

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

I'd like to say how great it is we had a chance to catch up and hear what you are doing and how much I appreciate all the work you've been doing to support our Toronto improv scene. Thanks Joe!

Recording: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra + The Element Choir

Artists: Toronto Improvisors Orchestra + The Element Choir

Songs: [excerpts from three improvisations]

Recorded at Array Space, March 19, 2017.

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra - [excerpt]

The Element Choir - [excerpt]

Toronto Improvisors Orchestra feat. The Element Choir - [excerpt]

A special night convened by the TIO to pay tribute to The Element Choir and its leader Christine Duncan. Both groups showed up in force — I counted sixteen or so musicians and about twice that many choristers, although there were a few people that were members of both. In the first half, each ensemble performed on its own, and then after the break the whole conglomeration performed together.

The key question for large improvising ensembles is how to keep everyone on the same page and to provide a shape that goes beyond heaping one thing on top of another, and both groups have found a solution in their own similar conducting systems. Eugene Martynec and Christine Duncan led their ensembles in the first half, but Duncan held court in the second, at first leaving one group to improvise while she led the other before (as heard here) attempting to guide the whole thing.

[You can watch Array's archived version of the event's livestream over on their vimeo page.]