My mate and colleague Dan Mar-Molinero’s bigband album ‘Taproot’ has just been released. I played keys on all 5 tracks on the album, which was recorded remotely during the pandemic lockdowns. Dan is a super talented saxophonist and composer. It was great to learn and play his excellent tunes and particularly loved ‘Our Place’, probably as I feature as soloist in the second half!
Some mega musicians feature on the album. Give it a listen!
I’m delighted to have been nominated for Loop Concerto for jazz trio and large ensemble in the Contemporary Jazz Composition category of the British Composer Awards 2017.
Obviously honoured and super grateful to the people that made the piece work: the amazing trio involved in the premiere Ivo Neame (piano), Jasper Høiby (double bass) and Jon Scott (drums); the University of Southampton students and staff who played in the HARTLEY Loop Orchestra; Turner Sims for staging it; and the Music Department at Southampton for funding ‘The Loop Project’ in 2017!
The awards ceremony is 6 December at the British Museum…
In February the incredible Ivo Neame (piano), Jasper Høiby (bass) and Jon Scott (drums) came to play a new version of my ‘Loop Concerto’ with the HARTLEY Loop Orchestra at Turner Sims. It was brilliant to work with the trio and University of Southampton students putting the project together and big thanks must go to the Music Department at the University and Turner Sims for backing it. A video has been made and is now up on youtube. One issue is that there is very little footage of Ivo as the camera footage corrupted…
This weekend I’m directing a weekend of performances and workshops exploring musical loops at Turner Sims in Southampton. First up is a a great (free) concert on Friday lunchtime featuring Liz Kenny and Ivo Neame and a workshop on Saturday morning.
The main event is on Sunday 5 February at 7pm features leading jazz musicians Ivo Neame, Jasper Høiby and Jon Scott performing alongside University of Southampton students in the HARTLEY Loop Orchestra. We will perform a major revision/adaption of my Loop Concerto, which was premiered by Ivo and Kent County Youth Orchestra in 2013. I’ve rescored the work for jazz trio and large ensemble and am super excited to see what the trio bring to the piece. Rehearsals have been going well and they arrive on Friday. Katie Harding from Turner Sims interviewed me about the piece for the Turner Sims blog here.
Also on the programme is the world premiere of Andrew Fisher’s Piano Concertino, Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D (after J C Bach) in which Mozart loops a J C Bach Sonata, and Gavin Bryars’ 1972 seminal work Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
Tickets are available from the Turner Sims Box Office:
https://www.turnersims.co.uk/events/the-loop-project-with-ivo-neame/
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