08/09/2026
Thursday 10 September
Music: ALEX WARD - SOLO GUITAR
Doors 7pm for 7.30pm start. £8
An evening of solo guitar music from composer, improviser and performing musician Alex Ward.
1st Set - Acoustic
2nd Set - Electric
Ward’s diverse musical activities since the early ‘90s have straddled the worlds of free improvisation, contemporary composition and avant rock, and have seen him work with such significant musical figures as Derek Bailey, Duck Baker, Lol Coxhill, Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell, Thurston Moore, Joe Morris, Steve Noble, Evan Parker, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Pat Thomas and Weasel Walter, amongst a host of others. His work as a composer/bandleader has encompassed his own ensembles such as Predicate, Forebrace, the Alex Ward Quintet and Items 4, 6, 7 & 10, alongside collaborative projects such as his duos with Dominic Lash, Jem Doulton (as Dead Days Beyond Help) and Sean Noonan (as Noonward); while his solo releases have ranged from unaccompanied performances on clarinet and guitar to the layered studio creations found on 2021’s “Gated”. On this occasion, he will perform two sets of improvisations incorporating material from his 3 solo guitar releases “Frames” (2020, Relative Pitch Records), “The Trade” (2021, Takuroku, remastered rerelease 2024, Copepod Records) and “Drawn” (2025, Shrike Records). Alex currently plays guitar and sings in math/noise trio Heckle Chamber (with Roberto Sassi and Jem Doulton), and is working on the completion of the final album by legendary band Pere Ubu (which he joined in 2021) alongside the other surviving members.
“...guitarist Alex Ward [is] a compulsively creative polymath... a reliably unpredictable axe-hero for collaborators of all backgrounds.” Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times Review
