Category Archives: Gigs

Antheil Cover

September has been a time for consolidating and working on new things. I’m particularly really enjoying working on a reimagining of George Antheil’s Piano Sonata No.2 ‘The Airplane’ for Plus Minus Ensemble. Super cool piece and great ways to find ways to bring the material to life for 7 unbelievably brilliant musicians. Gig is 15 January at Cafe Oto.

Month at the piano…

Had a big month of playing the piano this January. Lots of practicing for 4 gigs…

First, music by Carla Bley ith my friends and colleagues Drew Crawford and Gre at a staff/student showcase at work. Here is the recording of ‘Wrong Key Donkey’, one of my favourite Bley tunes..

Then (23 January) a gig with the Dan Mar-Molinero band in Exeter, playing three great new tunes by Dan alongside 3 belters from his album ‘Taproot’. Always fun to play his music. Picture of Exeter from the carpark below!

And then this Monday, again at Turner Sims for the Department of Music, I played my Love Letters with superstar Hannah Williams before conducting awesome students in Milhaud’s La création du monde.

I’m really glad I started playing the piano again more a few years ago, and grateful to friends who invite me to play or are willing to play with me! Practising a lot feels good and hope to keep it going this year.

Looking forward to playing new music with Gre, Drew Crawford and Pablo Galaz as well as a new poetry-music collaboration with Will May next week at Winchester Cathedral:
https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/event/ocean-giants-whales-and-the-worlds-they-shape/

Myanmar Jazz Club Photos

Had an amazing time playing with Declare Sextet at Turner Sims a few weeks. My Uncle, Markus Kinch, captured some brilliant pictures. Was awesome to work with these amazing musicians: Nick Willsher, Tamar Osborn, Francesca Ter-Berg, George Balmont and Jake Long, with a very special guest slot from Liz Gre. Looking forward to editing together the recordings to share with the world and to hearing how the Yangon crew play the same music at their gig in November! Thanks again to British Council for funding.

Declare Sextet!
Tamar Osborn
Nick Willsher
Jake Long
Gre

Laefer Quartet performances of ‘Avalanche’

Laefer Quartet will give the world premiere of my sax quartet (with electronics) – Avalanche – at Turner Sims on 4 March 2024 at 1pm, as part of the Department of Music Lunchtime series. They will also play the piece at the launch of their new album STRATA on 16 March 2024 at St Peter’s Church, Fulham.

I’m really delighted to have Avalanche included on STRATA, which is released 1 March.

Love Letters [with AI]

Was a total joy working with the amazing Hannah Williams, awesome musicians from Riot Ensemble and a brilliant research team from the University of Southampton on the ‘Love Letters [with AI]’ project. Ash Sealy (@whatabouttheash) captured the London gig fantastically. I’m really proud of this project and especially my new 7-song cycle Love Letters. We recorded it between the two performances too and the cycle will feature on my portrait album. Too Many Sweets, next year…

Hannah Williams (vocals), George Barton (percussion), Adam Swayne & Siwan Rhys (piano), Aaron Holloway-Nahum (sound), Stephanie Lamprea (soprano), Prof. Will May
Sam Wilson

‘Enemy of the Stars’

I’ve created an electronic soundtrack to accompany Josh Ben-Tovim‘s choreography for ‘Enemy of the Stars’. The musical materials were created with Hollie Harding back in 2019 as part of the Cohan Collective Residency. The work will be performed by Impermanence as part of a quadruple bill in a tour taking in Huddersfield, Bristol and London in April and May. Details in gig listings.

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.