Author Archives: Ben

ANIL SOOD film released

ANIL SOOD premiere

On 22 July 2022 London Sinfonietta are staging an event in Southampton, UNTOLD STORIES, to screen the premiere of ANIL SOOD. I collaborated with the amazing artist Alys Scott-Hawkins on this project, writing a piece for piano and electronics, A-Listers, that Clíodna Shanahan recorded back in July 2021. Alys used the recording of this piece to make a super cool film. The music and film explore the life of Anil Sood, who we both met when he ran our local DIY store. Anil is an amazing person, who ran (and runs) drum’n’bass events as PARADOX. Following this premiere the film will be available on Youtube.

Clíodna Shanahan will also perform the UK premiere of my Too Many Sweets (when Dorothy met Blake) for toy pianos and electronics. The rest of the programme features a great piece by Julia Wolfe, East Broadway, and Steve Reich’s seminal Electric Counterpoint.

Recording ‘Drip Feeder’

Had a great morning last week recording Drip Feeder for piano and electronics with the amazing Yshani Perinpanayagam. Looking forward to sharing with the world in April 2024 when Birmingham Record Company release a portrait album provisionally titled ‘Too Many Sweets’!

Playing the piano…

Back in March I played piano with the Dan Mar-Molinero orchestra on a strange gig bringing together AI and jazz. I’ve had a bit of a strange relationship with the piano over the years. I love playing jazz music in particular but also spent a lot of my 20s around serious players and lost confidence about my playing. Piano has remained central to my compositional practice though. More recently my mate Dan Mar-Molinero keeps asking me to do gigs like this one at Turner Sims. Playing with Jasper Hoiby and Julian Arguelles as well as many other great musicians in this project was fantastic. I like it. I want to do more. Here are some great photos from Ash from whatabouttheash.

Consequences Pics

Had a great time working with awesome University of Southampton students and colleagues on The Exquisite Corpse of AI (Consequences) back in February. Hope to have a recording/video soon but in the meantime here are some great photos from Ash from whatabouttheash.

The Exquisite Corpse Of AI (Consequences)

I’ve written a piece for 12-piece ensemble as part of a project at University of Southampton created and led by my amazing colleague Drew Crawford: The Exquisite Corpse of AI (Consequences). My contribution is called Phat Feet and features 12 awesome undergraduate musicians from the Department of Music. Drew has brought together a bunch of us including Bella Barlow and Brona Martin to create this exciting new piece that we’ll premiere at Turner Sims and then perform at a private conference for the commissioners Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Intelligence for Automated Investigations for Scientific Discovery Network.

Dorothy Chan premieres ‘Too Many Sweets…’

Dorothy Chan will premiere Too Many Sweets (when Dorothy met Blake) for toy pianos and PICO synthesiser at The Cell, New York, on 15 December. Dorothy approached me to write this piece at the end of 2020 and it features 3 of her toy pianos (Lil’ Blue, Perry, Beu) and a new wavetable synth designed by Blake Troise (aka Protodome).