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/

VENT with Musarc

Had a wonderful time on Saturday at the premiere of VENT, which is a new piece for choir, electronics and object puppetry. I made the piece with my friend Rachel Warr, who is a fantastic theatre maker and puppetry director in response to a commission from the excellent organisation MUSARC. Rachel wrote the libretto and work narrative and also directed the movement and puppetry. The piece explores themes including protest, anarchy and ventriloquism. Was a lot of fun making it, and I found it very moving on Saturday. I also enjoyed playing ‘harmonium’ in Gavin Bryars’ On Photography and some kind of synth bass thing in Julius Eastman’s Stay On It. The concert went really well and the following are some rehearsal pictures from the gig by Yiannis Katsaris. I’ll post some other pics in the New Year.

Look forward to seeing how the piece can evolve in the world.

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

Myanmar Jazz Club Project

I’ve been working on an exciting project for a while, a collaboration with Yangon based musician Itö and the Myanmar Jazz Club which he runs. The UK culmination of this British Council funded project takes place at Turner Sims next Tuesday, where a new sextet of amazing musicians (with Liz Gre guesting on vocals) will perform new pieces by a number of the jazz club and a big new piece I’ve written in partnership with Itö. The Myanmar crew will play the music again at the British Embassy in Yangon in early November. Hope to see you there.

Slappy Birthday

I’m moving away from Soundcloud and adding some of my older stuff to YouTube. This is the first one, a postcard piece I made for London Sinfonietta back in 2017 for their 50th Anniversary…