Camilla Saunders - musician, musical director, performer, composer, improviser (piano, voice, trombone, accordion, found objects) - undertook a residency in Masterton in 2019.
She has studied folk music in Hungary and Romania; she has also been in residence at Druskininskai, Lithuania. Committed to free improvisation as an art form and means of communication, she is the co-founder of Footloose Community Arts, Terabac and Fractofusus, and is a member of the Radnor Improvisers and Oxford Improvisers.
She is currently working on a ‘secular liturgy’ on the theme of biodiversity, and a book of songs about insects. During her residency, she spent time in open spaces and with nature, listening to natural sounds, and gathering ideas for a solo performance piece exploring issues concerning the Anthropocene; the need for humans to re-connect with other beings on earth, and each other; the search for wildness within ourselves; not seeing ourselves as separate from the rest of life, but recognising ourselves as part of nature… finding ways of conveying these ideas in music.