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PS Guelph Book Launch — Improvising Freely: The ABCs of an Experience by Lê Quan Ninh (English Translation by Karen Houle)

Launch and Concert: Friday, September 5th // 10:30 pm

Guelph Youth Music Centre
(Purchase Tickets)

Lê Quan Ninh's performance at the 2008 Guelph Jazz Festival changed Karen Houle's life. She describes the experience in the introduction to her English translation of Ninh's book, Improvising Freely: The ABCs of an Experience. She writes that "Ninh makes sound come up out of the thinnest motions of his hands, and he makes it thicken like you can with egg whites turning to magical meringue. But he does it with hardly any sounds. Just the movement of the air." In a rare act, Ninh has written down his musings and insights into improvisation, and it's now available in English, translated by Houle, and published by PS Guelph. On September 5th, French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh will improvise with New York multi-instrumental virtuoso Joe McPhee, followed by the launch of the book in the lobby at the Guelph Youth Music Centre.

www.guelphjazzfestival.com

If people talked the way they drummed in improvisation, then I think the world would be a lot nicer…

– Youth participant, ICASP improvisation workshop