Queen Mab 40 years on

$22.63 online

$20 at the door

Queen Mab is the controller of dreams in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and has been the inspiration for the musical duo Queen Mab, comprised of award-winning legendary improvisors Lori Freedman (clarinets) and Marilyn Lerner (piano). Hailing from different musical worlds (contemporary and jazz, respectively), they joined in Winnipeg in the mid 80’s, sharing a common desire to forge a unique language of their own spontaneous music.

In the early days when Lerner and Freedman were developing the duo’s language, they would spend hours improvising, workshopping their ideas, trying different structures and concepts, all while recording themselves. They would listen back to every note and little by little, with intense concentration, a distinctive sound emerged. But what to call the kind of music they were creating? Freedman, upon returning from a concert tour to Quebec felt she had found a word that described what they were doing as Musique Actuelle. Although Musique Actuelle is of and about Quebecois artists, the term was a close as it got. In those days, applying for grants meant explaining that the music did not fit comfortably in either the jazz or contemporary categories. In this way Lerner and Freedman were among the pioneers in Canadian improvised music

Queen Mab’s first live show was at Vancouver‘s Women in View Festival (1989). Barbie’s Other Shoe, their debut recording, was released in 1997 on Viny Golia’s 9winds label. Other notable concerts in those days included Roulette (NYC), FIMAV (Victoriaville), Sound Symposium (Newfoundland), the Music Gallery (Toronto) and the Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver International Jazz Festivals. Queen Mab released …close, duos and trios (Spool, 2000) with Toronto improvisors Lee Pui Ming, Tina Kiik, Fides Krucker, Jack Vorvis, and Victor Bateman.

Ig Henneman (Netherlands) heard the duo and joined to create the Queen Mab Trio. This fruitful collaboration resulted in the trio recordings See Saw (Wig, 2005), Thin Air (Wig, 2006), and Réunion (Ambiences Magnétiques, 2017). QM3 toured extensively in Europe, the U.S.and Canada, and then with the Ig Henneman Sextet which included (along with Ig, Marilyn, and Lori) Axel Dorner, Ab Baars, and Wilbert de Joode.

After the Queen Mab Trio era, Lerner and Freedman went separate ways, developing other projects in collaboration with a bevy of remarkable artists.

Although Queen Mab had a hiatus, Lerner and Freedman never stopped the conversation and eventually began to revisit and revive their original duo at the Murray Street Studioin Montreal. In November of 2024 they performed live for the first time in years at Toronto’s Tranzac Club. The depth of their connection was felt immediately by the audience.

What you are going to hear is both totally new and familiar. It’s the wealth of a musical and personal friendship

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