Bea Labikova is a Slovak-Canadian saxophonist and improviser whose music traverses free improvisation, avant-garde, modern jazz and Slovak folk music. You can find her exploring and playing in ad hoc projects and new music ensembles like the avant-groove future proof, free improvised project “No Beginning, No End” alongside Germaine Liu and William Parker, as well as the avant-jazz group Triio and the contemporary afrobeat band Asiko Afrobeat Ensemble.
In addition to specializing in alto saxophone, Bea has been developing her own innovative style on the fujara, a Slovak overtone flute. She adapted the instrument for use in free improvisation, taking it out of its traditional folk music context and exploring the fujara's percussive potential. In her solo project Mount Joy, Bea couples wind instruments, vibraphone and percussion with electronic processing to create ethereal sonic landscapes that evoke the tacit rawness of the arctic tundra - the haunting sounds of the wind, the rumbles of calving glaciers, the echoes of ice cracking and the loud and inescapable silence of the arctic land during the polar night season. Bea creates spontaneous compositions based on real-time emotions, impulses and ideas accompanied by large-scale visuals created and developed at an arts residency in Svalbard near the north pole. In the spring of 2024, Bea will release an album “No Beginning, No End” recorded with percussionist Germaine Liu and NYC’s bassist William Parker as well as a debut album with her avant-groove group future proof. Bea is the co-founder, visual artist and one-half of the driving force behind the Women From Space Festival. |
no beginning, no end
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future proof
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Mount Joy
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Asiko Afrobeat Ensemble
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Alex Fournier's Triio
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Lila Ensemble
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Music and the Shadow People by William Parker and Andrew O'Connor
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Women From Space Big Bang!
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Solo Fujara
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Quartet Pronk
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