Ron Samworth

Vancouver-based guitarist/composer Ron Samworth is known on the Canadian improvised/contemporary music scene as an inventive textural improviser and a strong fluid melodicist informed and inspired by a variety of music traditions including jazz, rock, new music and folk music of many cultures. He is the founder and leads the internationally acclaimed improvisation ensemble, Talking Pictures.

He has appeared at all the major jazz festivals across Canada, the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, New York’s Knitting Factory, and the New York Improvisation Festival, New Music America, Vienna’s “Lets Cool One” Chamber Jazz Festival, Chicago and Berlin jazz festivals and other leading venues in Europe. His inter-disciplinary work includes composition, performance and sound design for theatre, spoken word, film, and dance. He has composed music for Talking Pictures, Standing Wave, Hard Rubber Orchestra, NOW Orchestra, EDAM Dance Company, Vancouver New Music Festival and various dance, film and theatre projects. Samworth was also a longtime member and, from 1992 to 2003, artistic director of New Orchestra Workshop (NOW), and a co-curator of a weekly concert series at Vancouver’s grunt Gallery from 1987 to 1994.

Samworth’s playing credits include John Zorn, Barry Guy, George Lewis, Wayne Horvitz, Rene Lussier, and the new music operas The Gang and 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade.