Improvised Music Company is proud to be a part of the Better Live European co-operation project in 2023-2026, a wide programme of research and experimentation on the potential for greener, more decentralised touring for jazz artists in Europe. Better Live involves 11 European partners and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Better Live began with the knowledge that mobility of artists and audience is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions within the cultural sector, but touring is yet an essential part of music for artists and audiences.
Aiming to stabilise the circulation of artists in Europe while reducing our carbon footprint, Better Live will experiment with the sustainable concerts and low-carbon tours across a 4-year programme. The goals of the programme are framed around a project of connection - bringing promoters, venues, organisations and music-lovers at all levels together to develop more co-ordinated and therefore more sustainable tours.
Better Live Goals
Goal 1: Reducing the carbon footprint of live music events resulting from the mobility of artists and audiences.
Goal 2: Supporting the circulation of international artists and increasing the programming diversity across Europe.
During the next 4 years, the project will develop the data analysis tools, organize trainings for professionals and will experiment with the sustainable concerts and low-carbon tours.
Background to Better Live
Europe is now facing one of its most profound financial, social and ecological crises. Covid-19 and Russian Invasion on Ukraine have exacerbated the already existing challenges that have threatened the unity and well-being of our community. Like all cultural sectors, the music sector needs to adapt to these existential changes in order to survive. It needs a systemic change that will lay the proper foundations towards a more sustainable, just and inclusive live music system. At the same time, the international dimension of artistic creation is a condition for the further development of our industry. Music is international in its nature and thrives through peaceful, creative and respectful cooperation across borders.
In “Better Live” we place these two exact goals at the forefront of our actions. The project a multifaceted way to initiate a fair, green and inclusive transformation and, at the same time, to further develop the live music sector to support and increase artists’ international circulation. In order to achieve these aims, the jazz sector needs new structures, awareness, competencies, and incentives.
The Project
Working with the European Music Exporters Exchange to track the carbon footprint of model touring events, Better Live will identify the carbon savings that can be made around touring music, and live-test the practicality of changing models. Sharing knowledge amongst different areas, Better Live will expand the knowledge and awareness of the jazz sector around sustainability, with a focus on training and community building.
With local partners from the smallest grassroots organisations to national bodies working together, Better Live will bring tools and supports together to make artistic circulation in Europe more sustainable, for a fair, coherent, and bottom-up decarbonization of the live music sector.
Better Live involves 9 partners from 9 different European countries working in promotion of music, along with the European Music Exporters’ Exchange as research partners, and jazzahead! Trade fair as a dissemination partner.
The 9 promoting organisations involved are:
Le Périscope, France
International Jazz Platform, Poland
Bimhuis, Netherlands
Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene, Norway
Plataforma Jazz España, Spain
Zavod Sploh, Slovenia
The Cluster, Greece
Improvised Music Company, Ireland
GLivelab Tampere, Finland
Better Live is a project co-funded by the Europe Creative programme of the European Union, and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.
Better Live Tours in Ireland
CONCERTS
Thursday 7th March, The Cooler, Dublin: Tickets
Friday 8th March, Triskel Arts, Cork: Tickets
Saturday 9th March, The Black Box, Belfast: Tickets
Improvisation workshop with NOUT, Thursday 7th March, The Cooler, Dublin: Booking
French noise-jazz trio NOUT hit Ireland for the first time in the days around International Women’s Day this year, bringing their particular brand of punk-ish, metal-influenced improvisation to venues in Dublin, Cork and Belfast.
An unusual combination of flute/effects, electric harp, and drums, Delphine Joussein, Rafaëlle Rinaudo and Blanche Lafuente aim at pushing their instruments beyond their limits, with the enthusiasm of a mad scientist in front of his vials.
The trio were winners in 2023 of the Europe Jazz Network’s prestigious Zenith Award for rising stars of the jazz scene. Audiences can expect an intense, immersive experience, somewhere between Nirvana and Sun Ra, in the wake of John Zorn's experiences on the borders of jazz and noise.
The group imagine their music cinematically, as an adventure with surprising twists. “We believe to be the characters of Alien and we find ourselves in Indiana Jones; we start with our eyes shut on a red movie theatre seat and we end up rocking on the dancefloor."
With their adaptive and improvisatory powers, the tour will showcase NOUT to the extent of their skills in strikingly different venues. Audiences in Dublin can expect a close-up, intimate encounter with the group in the industrial, Berlin-style vibes of Improvised Music Company’s former fruit warehouse venue, The Cooler at The Complex. In Cork - to contrast - the eighteenth-century arches of Triskel Christchurch will ring out with NOUT’s entirely modern sound, while in Belfast, NOUT are the closer of Moving On Music’s highly regarded jazz festival, Brilliant Corners.
Irish musicians will also take some inspiration from the tour, with NOUT leading an improvisation workshop for musicians at The Cooler during the tour.
EVENTS
9th October at Ulster University Magee, Derry
9th October - Workshop with Magee College students
10th October - The Cooler, Dublin
11th October - Westport Jazz
12th October - Jazz in County Kildare
All About Dreaming is a solo trombone performance by Italian trombonist Filippo Vignato to adapt and interact with the different acoustic dimensions of different spaces: an essential and minimalist dialogue with the echoes, reverbs and resonances of the place to be discovered and to be immersed in during the concert for both the performer and the audience. The strong relationship and interaction with the space redefine the musical and performative narration over time, in a continuous exploration of the expressive sonic and acoustic possibilities of the environment through free improvisation.
Reworking the link between performing art and the concert form, All About Dreaming is an all-encompassing experience for musician and audience, enveloped by the same sound and the same space in a timeless dreamlike dimension, following the path created by European historical trombone legends like Albert Mangelsdorff and Paul Rutherford.
The performance has been developed through several site-specific performances and residencies in historical buildings, churches and exposition spaces such as Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza, Chiesa di San Filippo Neri in Fermo (MC), Pinacoteca San Domenico in Fano (PU), Tempio di San Michele in Perugia.
Irish musicians will also be able to take inspiration from Filippo's creative use of solo instrumentation, acoustic effects and the improvisatory process, with a workshop for Magee College students in Derry.