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Sunday 18th January 2026ADRA Promotions presents ...
Calderfornia Dreamin’
an afternoon of Real Ale, Natural Wine, Negronis and collaborative improvised live music from ...
RAYMOND MACDONALD
Glasgow-based saxophonist and composer, member of Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra and collaborator of Evan Parker, Fred Frith, Keith Tippett etc.
SA MALLEY
The Unit Ama / The Horse Loom / Kodiak / Crane guitarist
unleashes the textural chops and drones
at Dukes
16-18 Market St, Russel St, Halifax HX1 1NX
3pm - 5:30pm. Free/Donation Entry
It’s also vinyl Sunday so bring your chill records
-- more info ---
Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist, composer and academic whose work explores the boundaries and ambiguities between what is conventionally seen as improvisation and composition.
Much of his recent performing work has been in collaborative free improvisation contexts, however his roots in jazz and pop music are always evident in his playing and writing. MacDonald collaborates widely and has worked with visual artists, dancers, writers and filmmakers and has produced music for film, television, theatre and the concert hall.
MacDonald has worked internationally with many of the current pioneers in avant-garde music including the sublime US pianist Marilyn Crispell, German drummer Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer, David Byrne, Damo Suzuki from Can, Nurse with Wound, German trumpeter Axel Dorner, US trombonist and educator George Lewis, Japanese Percussionsist Tatsuya Nakatani, US percussionist Michael Zerang, US cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.
His ambitious International Big Band features the virtuosic Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, Australians Alistair Spence and Toby Hall and Lloyd Swanton from The Necks and exSonic Youth guitarist Jim O’Rourke among others and in 2010 released, to critical acclaim, Buddy, his first CD on the French label Textile. Buddy was also named in top CDs of year in Wire magazine, Jazzwise and All about Jazz.
“An unqualified Success”
- The Wire
MacDonald has collaborated extensively with the leading lights of the UK avant-garde scene including Evan Parker, Fred Frith, Keith Tippett, Barry Guy, Harry Beckett, Keith Rowe, Lol Coxill, Maggie Nicols, Steve Noble, Steve Beresford, London Improvisers Orchestra and Future Pilot AKA.
He co-leads the imaginative George Burt-Raymond MacDonald Quartet (“leading contemporary Jazz” The Guardian) and is a key player in the formidable musical force that is the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) which runs an annual programme of events at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and has been described as the ‘Premier league of the European improvisation scene.’ (Sudeutsche Zeitung)
MacDonald has toured and broadcast worldwide and his recorded output, which amounts to over 50 releases can be found on a number of international labels including: FMR (UK) | Leo (UK) | Textile (France) | Thrill Jockey (USA) | Matinee (USA) | Clean Feed (Portugal) | Creative Sources (Portugal) | nujazzeurope (Scotland) | Aufgeladen und Bereit (Germany), as well as his own label Iorram, which he runs with fellow GIO members, Neil Davidson and Una MacGlone.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Dukes Halifax, 16-18 Market Arcade, Russell Street, Halifax, United Kingdom
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
