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).

Soldier’s Tale Photos

Directing Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale earlier this month was a big highlight of my conducting career. Awesome music of course, brilliant musicians (including a number of great friends it was a delight to work with again), great cast and an awesome creative team. Hope we can do more PACS soon! Here are a couple of snaps from rehearsals from the project…

‘A-Listers’ recording at Turner Sims

Was really great to have the London Sinfonietta down to visit Southampton last week to undertake the recording of my newest piece A-Listers for piano and electronics. Clíodna Shanahan was in the Steinway recording hot seat and was fantastic to work with her and Adam Flynn from the Sinfonietta who was engineering. My collaborator on this London Sinfonietta Community Commission, artist Alys Scott-Hawkins, will work with the recording, animation and archive footage to make a film for release later this year or early in 2022. Both the music and film interpret the story of Anil Sood, who is well-known in Southampton for running a dance music record shop and drum’n’bass events in the 1990s and 2000s.