Exceptional Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies comes to Bristol to play his duo with acclaimed percussionist Mark Sanders.

Rhodri will also join Diabolus (Mark Sanders, Rachel Musson, Matt Davis).

Rhodri Davies is a harpist, improviser, composer and multidisciplinary artist. He plays harp, bray harp, horsehair harp, electric harp and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released eight solo albums. His regular groups include: HEN OGLEDD, Common Objects, IST and duos with John Butcher and Mark Sanders. He has worked with the following artists: Derek Bailey, Hamid Drake, Simon H Fell, Will Gaines, Jenny Hval, Sofia Jernberg, Lina Lapelyte, Nicole Mitchell, Butch Morris, David Sylvian, Pat Thomas and Otomo Yoshihide.

Davies was closely associated with the pioneering composer Éliane Radigue performing eighteen of her pieces. She composed OCCAM I for Davies in 2011, the first in a series of solo and ensemble pieces for individual instrumentalists in which a performer’s personal performance technique and particular relationship to their instrument functioned as the compositional material of the piece. New pieces for solo harp have also been composed for him by Philip Corner, Carole Finer, Alison Knowles, Catherine Kontz, Phill Niblock, Ben Patterson, Mariam Rezaei, Mieko Shiomi, Yasunao Tone and Christian Wolff. 

In 2008 he collaborated with the visual artist Gustav Metzger on ‘Self-cancellation’, a large-scale audio-visual collaboration in London and Glasgow. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award, he was a Chapter Associate Artist (2016-19) and in 2017 he received a Creative Wales Award. He is a co-organiser of the NAWR concert series in Abertawe-Swansea. www.rhodridavies.com

Mark Sanders (b. 1960), a renowned drummer /​percussionist of British-Belizean heritage, has been at the forefront of improvised music worldwide for the last 30–40 years. Known for his unique playing style in the fields of Free Jazz and Free Improvisation, as well as skills and versatility in other genres, he has worked with an impressively broad range of artists. He has performed with a host of renowned improvising musicians including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Joelle Leandre, Roswell Rudd, Myra Melford, Henry Grimes, Sylvie Courvoisier, Charles Gayle, John Butcher and Evan Parker. He has also worked with contemporary artists such as Christian Marclay, Henryk Hakensen, Sam Belinfante, as well those in the opera and classical fields such as Sarah Sarhandi/​Lore Lixenberg, David Ryan and Elaine Mitchener.

Diabolus is a trio comprised of saxophonist Rachel Musson, percussionist Mark sanders and trumpeter Matt Davis. First playing at Supernormal Festival in 2024.

Rachel Musson is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in the UK. She is a current (2024-2027) recipient of the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Composer award. She has spent the last decade immersed in improvised music, and has also gradually been introducing composed elements into her work, drawing on text, field recordings and processing sounds. She is involved with a variety of improvisation projects, and works regularly with Mark Sanders, Pat Thomas, Hannah Marshall, Julie Kjaer, Corey Mwamba, Olie Brice, Alex Ward, Alex Hawkins amongst others. She features on several releases, including a nonet featuring her composition 'I Went This Way' (577 Records), two with Shifa, feat. Pat Thomas and Mark Sanders, (577 Records), one with Mark Sanders and John Edwards (Two Rivers Records), trio with Liam Noble and Mark Sanders (Babel), and Corey Mwamba (Takuroku).

"A free-improviser sensitive to melody-like narrative and dramatic pacing" – John Fordham, The Guardian