Category Archives: News

‘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.

Pythagoras’ Toolkit Premieres

Just back from a brilliant week or so in Montreal conducting the premiere of my collaborative puppetry-music work made with Rachel Warr (Dotted Line Theatre). It was fantastic working with Rachel, the amazing musicians of Ensemble Paramirabo, and ridiculously talented puppeteers Gilbert Taylor and Edie Edmundson. The reception from both kids and adults was fantastic, and it was really great to be part of the Festival de Casteliers. Great to see lots of weird and wonderful puppetry in other shows too! Fingers crossed this production leads to further opportunities to do the piece. I’m hugely proud of what Rachel and I have created together and grateful to Jeff Stonehouse and all at Ensemble Paramirabo for believing in it and supporting the project.

Photos by Brenden Friesen

LOVE LETTERS [WITH AI]

I’m excited to have received some funding from the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton to lead an interdisciplinary project exploring artificial intelligence language generation of song texts. The ultimate outcome will be a new song cycle for British soul sensation Hannah Williams and a superstar quartet of Riot Ensemble players, which we’ll premiere in Southampton and London in July 2023!! More soon!

Hannah Williams

Pythagoras’ Toolkit production (finally) happening!

I’ve spent the past few months busily revising and reworking, with my creative collaborator Rachel Warr of Dotted Line Theatre, the score of Pythagoras’ Toolkit (La Boîte à outils de Pythagore in French!) for ensemble and puppeteer. We are working towards the inaugural production of the show with the amazing Ensemble Paramirabo, which will take place in early March in Montreal. I’ve just sent off the production score and parts!

Rachel is brilliant to work with. Super talented of course but also so focused on ensuring the narrative of the show is totally honed. We started working on the piece back in 2019 and have had lots of (mostly pandemic induced) setbacks along the way so it’s really great to be finally heading towards showing this piece to the world.

Details of shows on my gigs page. We are filming and recording it too.

End of a chapter

I’ve just come back from a big summer break with the family, had an awesome time (pic of a lovely Italian vineyard below!). Just before I went away I finished my 3-year stint as Head of Music at the University of Southampton, handing over to my colleague Prof. Tom Irvine. It’s been quite a ride managing things through the pandemic and with other challenges. Really glad I did it but also pleased to return to having more space for creative projects. Lots on the way so watch this space!

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’!