10 months flown! Guildhall Masters tick! Musical ventures in Palestine and NEW ALBUM (!)..

wowwee.. 10 months have just flown by and i see the calendar will clock over to December next week.. Blimey! i feel i should back track a little considering the time past..

It's been a busy year this one. I finished the masters at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, my final project being a collaboration with tap dancer and choreographer Junior Laniyan. Readers may remember my post from november last year about the london tap jam.. well, Junior and i created a half hour show of live music (performed on piano, harp, bass clarinet and violin) and 5 tap dance extraordinaires! the next plan is to develop it into a full length show..

Musicians I work with were Ausiàs Garrigós Morant on bass clarinet, Katya Herman on harp and Eugene Feygelson on violin.. such fabulously talented people to work and play with.. And the amazing tap dancers were Junior Laniyan, Ryan Campbell-Birch, Thomas Kempf, Eilidh Ross and Avalon Rathgeb. Such a great project to immerse myself in.. cannot wait until the next installment..

here's a pic of me from the technical rehearsal..

and a little montage from rehearsals..

ok, so next story, as part of the masters back in march, my fellow students and i had a venture to Palestine, for a music exchange with Beit Al Musica and the Edward Said Music Conservatorium. this was the second part to our initial collaboration in London in October last year, however this time we visited their homeland and surrounding areas, immersing ourselves in their culture.. what an amazing time we had, meeting and playing with really fantastic musicians, running workshops for conservatoriums there, amongst touring about a little in Bethlehem, Ramallah, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem on the final day..

i swam in the dead sea!

the exchange group...

i was also commissioned in May this year.. a solo piano work, written, recorded and hand-scribed by yours truly.. the perfect job!

On the completion of my masters, I also said goodbye to the collection percussion instruments I've become so close with over the past couple of years..

a sad goodbye to all the percussion instruments..

By this time I was in good need of a holiday, so a trip to Portugal was in order..

Porto, Portugal..

And more recently I played with Ruthless Jabiru, the All-Australian Orchestra in London conducted by Kelly Lovelady, performing at Union Chapel in London.. here's a couple of pics from the rehearsals..

OK.. so... finally, I'd like to end with the announcement of a brand new CD, called Heavy Forest Air.. it's a live spontaneous musical collaboration between Eugene Skeef on all things percussive and myself on vibes & marimba. Recorded by Jared Miller in the Rolston Recital Hall at The Banff Centre, Alberta Canada, it was an impulsive venture in this magnificent hall filled with percussion instruments, that began as an experiment following an intensive three month winter music residency. I highly recommend it as it's an absolute gem of an album! buy it here.. http://www.sunwrae.com

thanks and see you all very soon...
Australian audiences stay tuned for a visit in March / April 2014... finally!

ps. poly was put up online this year..
pps. for any vibraphone players out there~ the sheet music of Decipher the Crooked Ways for solo vibes is now available to buy.. please contact us for more details!

Argentina exchange, Canal cruise, gigs and workshops..

mm where do i begin?!
probably Argentina..
In December I was fortunate to spend just over a couple of weeks in La Plata, near Buenos Aires in Argentina. Whilst the contrast in weather from London was awesome and I could have stayed by the pool the whole time, we (myself and a few fellow Masters students from Guildhall) were there to immerse ourselves in music (and a little bit of dancing!).. Candombe, Tango and Argentinian Folklore music were the flavour of our days, from early in the morning, until late evening. Our Argentinian teachers and collaborators were fantastic people, musicians and souls to have around day and night.

First stop was Candombe, a ceremonial gathering of sorts, with music (primarily drumming) and dance. In Argentina today, the rhythms of Candombe stem from traditions in Uraguay. Below are the three base rhythms & variations (and names of the drums), Clave, Chico and Piano, that make up Candombe, which gets incredibly fast and complicated with experience and improvisation...

 

Here's a few pics & videos of our teachers and us absorbed in Candombe..

After learning the ins and outs of Candombe over a number of intense days playing (and taping the blisters from our fingers down!), we embarked on a venture into the public to show of our stuff..

our meeting place where the fire below was..

heating the skins of the drums before playing..

and the walk to prepare...

where are we going?

nearly 2 hours walking, 10 blocks (slowly!), all the while, playing..

amazingly powerful feeling, so loud..

unfortunately i cannot upload a video of this, as there's a limit of 100mg... ouch!! sorry! sounded amazing though...

then came the tango and folklore.. music and dancing! I loved learning the tango music, so particular in articulation.. the influence will certainly come out in my future writings... look out!!!

Keeping the locals on their toes during my tango lesson.. yes, that's me :)

and time out bike riding to the crystal tree (only 2 left in South America!)

oops someone had a puncture..

meantime we're in the background having an afternoon beer..

couldn't resist this one.. he he he!

and i've been involved in some music and theatre workshops, dance improvisation sessions and also been to see lots of shows.. London Jazz Festival: Neil Crowley Trio at The Barbican, some good ol rock n' roll at Macbeth in Hoxton, the Dan Wood Trio playing Thelonious Monk at the Servant Jazz Quarters, Orchestra Elastique at Cafe Oto in Dalston, the fabulous Manu Delago (Bjork's percussionist, on Hang) in 'Living Room' at Rich Mix in Shoreditch.. and the list goes on...

The day of Manu Delago's gig with Living Room, he and Austrian woodwind player Christoph Pepe Auer came to run a session at Guildhall. They're fantastic and well rounded musicians and I highly recommend checking out their projects, all of them (!)..their youtube clips are great too..

Just after new year's I embarked on a canal cruise with some great friends who own a narrow boat and moor it just outside London, to the West in the beautiful countrside. We went along for the ride (almost 9 hours it took), travelling down the canal from Camden, through the locks, eventually stopping in the countryside to breathe in the fresh air. then.. back to london smog on a train :(

Little Venice

 

And of course it snowed for a week or more. my toes have finally thawed out!! It was quite delightful to see the snow.. watch the snowmen being built.. experience a quieter London.. and giggle at people trying to walk on slippery surfaces and fall flat on the ground laughing...

my street..

my morning view on my way out..

 

 

me and my snowman..

me and my instruments..

OK. I think it's over and out from me for now.. next up is a music exchange with the Palestinian musicians we worked with in October... from Beit AlMusica Conservatoire in Shefa’amr and The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Ramallah.. but we're visiting them!!! Stay tuned for more in a month or so.. :)

Palestinian musicians & Arabic music inspiration, London Tap Jam and Strindberg..

OK, so it seems inevitable that this blog will be a monthly one.. which funnily enough has been happening anyways. i'll keep this post writing short, because there'll be more pics and videos to come, so this is just a taster.. and please check out my previous posts if you haven't before. there's loads of stories!

So this past month, however craazily busy, has been fabulous on all fronts creative and inspirational. and despite the weather settling into winter mode (hats, scarves and gloves all round) and the clocks changing so it's dark by 5pm, i think it'll be a month to remember.

The first three weeks of October saw me writing for a small theatre production by Foreign Affairs, a new theatre company based in London. The play was a new translation of 'simoom', written by the most famous Swedish playwright Strindberg, produced alongside the Scandinavian department at University College London (UCL) to celebrate his centenary.

the actors.. Junior Laniyan, Erica Chestnut and Jamie Pigott

In the third week of October, as part of my masters course, we had a residency off-campus in Hackney, hosting a group of Palestinian musicians, from Beit AlMusica Conservatoire in Shefa’amr and The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Ramallah (Palestine). 

Titled Narrow the Distance, the week long project was a cultural, collaborative and creative exchange project that brought together the Palestinian musicians as well as the various musicians from my Masters course at Guildhall (from the UK, The Netherlands, Greece, America and Australia of course, that's me). It was an intense week of music making, loong hours from morning til night, but very inspiring, creating music collaboratively from the smallest of ideas, rhythms and melodies, culminating in a gig at the Hackney Cut in Hackney Wick, a new live music venue on the London map. 

It was a very special week, creating some great music and magical moments.. here are a few pics from the week (i was a bit slack in taking too many photos, but hopefully some more will be passed on to me!).. 

in rehearsal..

Maya, Nizar and Amer

Akram Haddad

Nizar Kabbany

Mid week we were blessed by the company of Youssef Hbeisch on percussion and Ahmad Al-Khatib on oud, for a workshop on Arabic music and rhythms, after seeing them perform the night prior with the one and only John Williams on guitar, at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea. 

Here's a few pics from the workshop, the first explaining the basics behind Arabic scales, made up of a series of tetra-chords.. the second of Youssef Hbeisch explaining his use of Arabic rhythms in performance.. and the third of them playing together.. i have a video of this, however it's too big for the blog upload.. sorry!

Arabic scales in motion..

Youssef Hbeisch and Arabic rhythms..

Ahmed Al-Khatib and Youssef Hbeisch

and a couple of quick videos behind the scenes...

and a few pics from the gig itself...

On the following Sunday after the gig, I went to a tap dancing masterclass by Guillem Alonso, from Barcelona (yes that's right, with my new tap shoes, I'm reminiscing my dancing days as a youngster.. primarily to draw inspiration from the incredibly complex rhythms that come out!). That evening, October 28, I went along to the 6th birthday of the London Tap Jam, hosted by Junior Laniyan, one of London's finest tap dancers. The London Tap Jam is held at Ronnie Scott's jazz club once a month, featuring a live jazz trio & guests instrumentalists, alongside a myriad of improvising tap dancers.. it was a great evening all round.. 

I'll sign off this blog with a few short videos from the evening.. 
junior...

michael...

guillem...

there were some fab female tappers too and an amazing sand dance by Guillem Alonso, however once again the videos were too big to upload :-(

over and out for now.. more news to come soon!! 
on the horizon.. argentina!! whoop!