Small group improvisation has a long history, going back to the very early roots of music. But free improvisation with a large orchestra can be more complex. Many players improvising together can, without some form of agreed intention, easily collapse into musical mayhem. This difficulty can be addressed though the use of ‘conduction’, in which a conductor directs the music by the use of signals to the players indicating form, length, pitch and exact players throughout. The success of this approach depends, of course, on the skill of the players but most importantly on the ability of the conductor to create a piece of music ‘within the moment’.

Pat Thomas, renowned for his improvisations on keyboards and electronics and recently nominated for the 2011 Paul Hamlyn Award for composers, is uniquely gifted at realising the shape of a piece of music and getting a large group of improvising musicians to realise his ideas.

This CD (FMRCD293-0810), recorded live at the Jacqueline du Pré, is the result of funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government, allowing Thomas to bring musicians from different ethnic backgrounds together with the Oxford Improvisers Orchestra. The resulting four tracks are a fascinating combination of conventional jazz instrumentation alongside ehru (a one-stringed violin), tabla, kora and pan drums. The proceedings were enhanced by the presence of saxophonist Steve Williamson.

Composition 786 begins with a solo passage on the ehru into which other sounds from the orchestra are slow added leading to sax solos over the shufflings of various percussion and short stabs from brass and reeds while the ehru continues, a delightful mingling of timbres and harmonic modes. Shock Tactics, featuring Steve Williamson on soprano, is more in the mode of a recognisable jazz idiom, whereas Tales, for voice and narration of a Nasruddin tale, swings back East. Concerto for Philipp Wacksmann puts the violin of this classically trained player in the forefront. These Four Compositions for Orchestra show just how rich free improvisation can become when under the direction of someone as insightful as Pat Thomas.