Stet Lab is, and has been for some time, on indefinite hiatus. [More info…]

Stet Lab December 6th 2010 (update)

The final Stet Lab of 2010, featuring Corey Mwamba, will take place on Monday, December 6, upstairs @ The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland [map…]. Up-to-date details…

Corey Mwamba

Stet Lab featuring Corey Mwamba

Monday, 6 December 2010.

9:00 pm (doors: 8:45 pm)

Upstairs @ The Roundy [map…]
Castle Street
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event, Stet Lab, continues into its fourth year of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Monday, 6 December 2010, upstairs at The Roundy, Castle Street, Cork, Ireland. This unique meeting between novice and veteran improvisers welcomes the exciting, up-and-coming, Derby-based vibraphonist Corey Mwamba.

A performer of “wit and originality” (The Oxford Times), Corey Mwamba has been described as a “brilliant young black vibes player” (The Daily Telegraph) with “amazing originality and vigour” (All About Jazz). Heard at this year’s London Jazz Festival, Mwamba plays the vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments, and his music and compositions embraces elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Mwamba has performed with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa, the Quantic Soul Orchestra and Robert Mitchell‘s Panacea, as well as his trio with Joshua Blackmore and Dave Kane, solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra and the Birmingham Improvisers’ Orchestra.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band, The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) Of…, consisting of Tony O’Connor (bass guitar) and Han-earl Park (guitar).

The event will begin at 9:00 pm (doors open at 8:45 pm) and entry is €10 (€5).

the performers

Corey Mwamba creates music using vibraphone, dulcimer, electronics and small instruments. His music contains elements of jazz, folk from different countries, and electronica.

Born in Derby and a former chemist and librarian, Corey is virtually self-taught in music having made the decision to take up vibraphone in his late teens after seeing a picture of Orphy Robinson in a book and taking five lessons with the orchestral percussionist Lewis Dyson.

Corey is primarily known as a highly creative improviser with a wide stylistic range: there have been appearances with Orphy Robinson, Pat Thomas, and Lol Coxhill; Andy Hamilton, Tony Kofi, the Master Drummers of Africa; Evan Parker, the Quantic Soul Orchestra, Robert Mitchell’s Panacea; as well as his own solo performances and with his collective the Symbiosis Ensemble. He has also worked as a percussionist with Derby Concert Orchestra.

Corey is seen as a skilled composer and band-leader; his commissions include Dhara Blues, a work for percussion and Kathak dancers for Derby Jazz: and with writer Bea Udeh and the Midlands-spanning group the Symbiosis Ensemble, Corey Mwamba’s literature and music piece Nature’s Glory, Fancy’s Child. This piece was selected for the regional Decibel Live! Showcase in 2004 and Derby Jazz Week 2005. The research for this work led Corey to present a talk on the creative presentation of history for the Black and Asian Studies Association at the V&A Museum in 2005. In the same year his solo improvisation, Three Two One, was selected for the Freeness album set up by CDR, Chris Offili, and the Observer Music Monthly. Corey Mwamba was selected for the Jerwood/PRS Foundation’s 2007 Take Five Initiative, a significant artist development scheme for emerging jazz musicians: he was also nominated for the 2008 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation. In 2009, Corey was selected by Arts Council England for The International Association of the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM) event in Skopje.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park works from/within/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Denmark, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

He is involved in ongoing collaborations with Bruce Coates, and with Franziska Schroeder, fifteen year long associations with Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include ensemble Mathilde 253 (Park, Charles Hayward and Ian Smith) with Lol Coxhill, a duo concert with Paul Dunmall, a trio with Kato Hideki and Katie O’Looney, an improvisative meeting with Thomas Buckner and Jesse Ronneau, and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. He has appeared at festivals including Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), Sonorities (Belfast) and VAIN Live Art (Oxford).

Park founded and curates Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and teaches improvisation at the UCC School of Music.