The Walyalup Weekend of Improvised Music is a new festival held at PS Art Space in Walyalup/Fremantle on June 24 and 25. It is dedicated to community-building around improvised music, a thriving sub-community of Boorloo’s broader exploratory music scene.

Our program revolves around two evenings of first meeting plays of improvised music, complemented by a variety of workshops, talks, and more. WWIM will include:

• Stalls with merchandise, information, newsletter sign-up and EOI forms from local organisations connected to improvised music.
• Two nights of concerts by local musicians in first-meeting collaborations.
• An improvising workshop in collaboration with Sound Exploration Fremantle.
• Provocations by interstate artists Jim Denley & Hannah Reardon-Smith.
• Talks by local artists on platforms and pathways for practicing as an improviser.
• An improvisation session directed by the WWIM team, open for public participation (no experience required).

WWIM has been established to unite a diverse and intergenerational community interested in improvised music practice in Boorloo and Walyalup. Despite appearing regularly amidst the broader exploratory music scene, no dedicated platforms for this music have existed since the termination of Tura New Music’s ‘iMprov’ program in 2017.

Exploratory musicians in Boorloo have been creating compelling, highly contextual work informed by place for longer than people have worried about the ‘cultural cringe’. Yet an ongoing paradox for artists in Western Australia is a belief that artistic merit is not proven until success has been achieved elsewhere. 

The totally unique, community-centered, and isolated, environment in WA can and does facilitate excellent art made at home. You’re invited to celebrate the exploratory music scene we have here, at the Walyalup Weekend of Improvised Music.

Whether you’re interested in self made instruments, new playing techniques, incredible virtuosity, seeing a different side to iconic local indie musicians, ambient sound sculptures, or being introduced to the world of free improvisation and the people behind it in WA, this is the festival for you.