Hobart Liberation Orchestra featuring Petra Haden

Charlie Haden is one of the most important improvising musicians of the 20th/21st centuries. His celebrated Liberation Music Orchestra has performed and recorded songs of protest, particularly in respect to the Spanish Civil War and Cuban Revolution (amongst others). The original research presented in this folio of 2 concerts is founded in recontextualization of Haden’s earlier work to a uniquely Australian context. This includes the addition of Australian songs of protest and provocation of Australian improvisers to respond to Haden’s original works via new arrangements with Australian improvisational sensibilities. Further to this, the Australian songs have been selected from repertoire not usually associated with improvised music, providing a new context through which these songs can be presented. Haywood assembled an ensemble where all members except 2 (Petra Haden and Eugene Ball) were Tasmanian, providing a novel ensemble configuration for this new work.