Caroline Kraabel is a London-based improviser, saxophonist, artist, conductor, and composer.
In 2022 Kraabel founded a large improvising group made up of all sorts of women, non-binary, and transgender improvisers: ONe_Orchestra New. Since then they have been exploring improvisation and difference in monthly labs and regular performances (recent release, Live at the Vortex July 2024). Kraabel’s soundfilm, London 26 and 28 March 2020: imitation: inversion won the 2021 Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art Composer.
Other active groups: duo with John Edwards (double bass) – Soundtrips70 tour and 2024 CD, Sparrow Dance. Duo with Zhuyang Liu (guzheng). 2024 CD release of Still Dancing CD with Daniel Thompson (acoustic guitar) and Max Reed (dance). Duo with cellist Khabat Abas – Five Communiqués relased 2023; Transitions Trio (with Charlotte Hug and Maggie Nicols, new CD release: On Dizziness); OTO-Moers Quartet, with Bex Burch, Simon Camatta and Raïssa Mehner; Fit To Burst, a song-based trio with Sarah Washington and John Edwards; a duo with Pat Thomas (CD release, whats wrong, August 2023); and the Poetry Quartet with Rowland Sutherland, John Edwards and Sofia Vaisman Maturana, which incorporates live poetry.
Kraabel has performed and recorded with many other improvisers, including Robert Wyatt (CD, LAST1 LAST2), Louis Moholo, Cleveland Watkiss, Hyelim Kim, Annie Lewandowski (duo CD, In The Garden City), Susan Alcorn (duo CD, Giving Out), Mark Sanders and Veryan Weston (trio CD, Playtime; duo CD on Emanem with Weston, Five Shadows), Mariá Portugal, Neil Metcalfe (duo CD, March), Crystabel Riley, Pei Ann Yeoh, Charlotte Keeffe, Alex Ward, Cath Roberts, Dee Byrne, Damsel Elysium, Chris Corsano.
Radio: Improvisers and Improvisation, made with John Edwards, is a 22-hour radio piece including music, noise, electronics, live performance and many new interviews with improvisers; part of 2022’s Radio Art Zone.
Kraabel’s solo saxophone improvisations while walking in London and elsewhere with her infant child/ren in their pushchair were broadcast weekly 2002-2006 on Resonance 104.4 FM as Taking a Life for a Walk and more recently (without babies) as Going Outside. Other radio work includes a ResonanceFM series of interviews with improvisers in many media (music, dance, visual art, politics, activism), Why is Improvising Important.
Some Kraabel compositions:
Performances for Large Saxophone Ensemble 1, 2, 3 and 4, for 21-piece spatial saxophone/voice ensemble (one CD and one LP released); Get Used To Balancing, a suite of pieces for alto sax, percussion and two flutes; Now We Are One Two, a solo performance piece and CD; Recording The Other, for soprano, cello, flute, piano and four recording devices; LAST 1, 2 and 3 for pre-recorded voice (Robert Wyatt) and ensemble (CD, LAST1 LAST2, on Emanem label); many songs; numerous pieces for large improvising ensembles in London and around the world, including Une note n’écoutant qu’elle-même and Missing.
Writing: with support from an Arts Council England DYCP grant (2024), Kraabel is working on a long text about why improvising is important. She also translates non-fiction and poetry, mostly from French to English.
During the Covid 19 lockdown periods, Kraabel performed live off- and on-line, and while walking through London; made and shared many recordings of duo and solo live improvisation, including a Takuroku release, Day Night, with John Edwards; made a piece of performance art (Depletion) for exhibition at APT Gallery, London; created a number of socially distanced large-group pieces for the London Improvisers Orchestra; was artist-in-residence at UNCOOL in Poschiavo, Switzerland; and made a 40-minute soundfilm about lockdown London (London 26 and 28 March 2020: imitation: inversion), which received its avant-première at London’s Café Oto on 25 February 2021, is available on the Jazzed app, and won the 2021 Ivor Novello Award for Sound Art Composer.
Kraabel conducted and played with the London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) from 1998-2022, featuring on all of LIO’s recordings during that time, and organising their 20th anniversary festivities in 2018 (celebrating illustrious LIO members from throughout the group’s history).