Charles Hayward's two-night residency at OTO revisits compositions that continue to change with each performance, alongside new groups assembled from across London's experimental and improvised music communities, focusing on new connections, new players and processes.

Over the past few years, Hayward has been working across genres with younger musicians in London; here those relationships meet less familiar collaborations with players including Evan Parker and John Bisset. Hayward describes the possibility of what once seemed like a distance between musicians becoming an interesting contrast, with ‘concepts and codes falling away into pure sound’.

Timestretch Alarmsong, part of Hayward's programme at The Albany in 2019, was described by Hayward at the time as a sequence of 'tunes and sound snakes', with tightly worked passages moving between melody, and much heavier material. It returns here in a revised form with a new line-up.

Fraction Infinity was originally written for the London Contemporary Orchestra, with whom Hayward collaborated at Southbank Centre in 2022. It has since been adapted for changing groups of improvisers. This new version places the score with Evan Parker, Alan Wilkinson, Yoni Silver, Caius Williams and Hayward. The two larger works sit alongside four smaller groupings across the residency: Ready Reckoner, Dwoh, Encounter and Shuffle Tingo Skiffle.

PROGRAMME – MONDAY 7 DECEMBER:

- Timestretch Alarmsong
Charles Hayward, Charlotte Keeffe, Agathe Max, Roberto Sassi, Lascelle Gordon, Jordan Muscatello

- Ready Reckoner
Charles Hayward, John Bisset, Nathan Greywater

- Dwoh
Charles Hayward, CJ Calderwood

PROGRAMME – TUESDAY 8 DECEMBER:

- Fraction Infinity
Charles Hayward, Evan Parker, Alan Wilkinson, Yoni Silver, Caius Williams

- Encounter
Charles Hayward, Evan Parker, Andrea Bolzoni, Caius Williams

- Shuffle Tingo Skiffle
Charles Hayward, Rael, Cecil B., CJ Calderwood, Caius Williams