Saxophonist & Composer
Very excited to announce that I’ll be playing at Wigmore Hall with Ross Stanley on April 13th (7.30pm)… Programme includes our own compositions plus arrangements of a whole range of music including the ‘Sleep’ Vivaldi project I did with Orchestra of the Swan, Joe Cutler’s Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii, a Marcel Dupré prelude, some Ellington… full details here
The concert is free to view, but donations to Wigmore Hall (so they can continue to programme these live streams) are very welcome…
Here are some fabulous shots taken by Monika S. Jakubowska of our gig last night… if you’d like to watch back the gig, click here … such a wonderful evening – so much fun!! Huge thanks to Louise McMonagle, Lauren Kinsella, Ross Stanley, Chris Montague, James Maddren, the whole team at Ronnie’s and Women in Jazz.
If you are able, the donate link to support the musicians is here ❤️
Pretty excited to say I’m going to be presenting MY IRIS – usual dream-team of Chris Montague, Ross Stanley & James Maddren – at Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club for the first time on March 8th for International Women’s Day … with special guests vocalist Lauren Kinsella and cellist Louise McMonagle. Kinsella is an utterly unique improvisor and guested with MY IRIS for the first time in November at the 606 Club for the London Jazz Festival. McMonagle is a powerful and infinitely creative cellist and has been a collaborator of Clowes since their music college days, including appearances as ‘The Odd Couple’ (they were scheduled to appear at Punkt Birmingham 2020), and recording for BBC Radio 3 studio sessions and Clowes’s first two albums on Basho Records. I’ve put some more info on these two awesome musicians below…
Lauren Kinsella is an Irish vocalist based in London. Her work as a composer, improviser, collaborator and performer has been described as “truly captivating” (For Folk’s Sake), “stunning” (BBC Radio 3) and with “inventive curiosity and imagination” (Irish Examiner). A regular performer at many of London’s celebrated venues and festivals including Kings Place, Cafe Oto, the Vortex, the Royal Albert Hall, Southbank Centre, Songlines Encounters and the London Jazz Festival, she has also performed at several European festivals including Unerhört Jazz (Switzerland), InJazz (Netherlands), Cool Britannia (Vienna), Klaeng (Cologne), Down With Jazz (Ireland), Ankara International Music Festival (Istanbul), 12 Points (Porto), Dublin Literary Festival (Ireland), European Jazznights (Oslo), Jazzy Colours (Paris), Belfast Literary Festival (UK), Südtirol Jazz Festival (Italy) and the Cardiff Poetry Festival (Wales). She specialises in improvisation and her unique style of vocalisation involves exploring the different types of vocabulary connected with vocal and instrumental sound. From singing to speech, utterance to lexicon, syllabic deconstruction to stream of consciousness, Lauren’s work celebrates the human voice in multi-faceted ways. “A modernist, Kinsella is pushing vocal improvisation into new areas” (AllAboutJazz) Kinsella also works as a soloist with several celebrated composers from contemporary classical (Ian Wilson, Ed Bennett) to film (Harry Escott) and writers (Cherry Smyth, Sally O’Reilly).
Louise McMonagle, a Scottish cellist in London, is a versatile performer who enjoys making music in many environments. Highlights include winning the Ernst Von Siemens Ensemble prize (2020), performing at Wigmore Hall (London), playing as soloist in Boulez Messagesquisse at the VIVA Cello Festival (Switzerland), recording Berio Sequenza XIV with Four Ten Media, and performing with eminent jazz musicians such as Trish Clowes (BBC NGA), Kit Downes (Mercury prize nominee), Evan Parker etc. Louise loves playing music by living composers, and has found a musical home in the Riot Ensemble as cellist and Artistic Board Member. In this role she works as performer, curator, commissioner and collaborator; creating and producing a diverse array of projects around Europe. Described as “volcanically creative” by Alex Ross (The New Yorker), Riot Ensemble have given around 200 World and UK Premieres by composers from more than 30 countries.Their discography includes releases on HCR/NMC Recordings and Coviello Classics. Louise has performed at festivals such as Wien Modern (Austria), HDS ZAMP (Croatia), Dark Music Days (Iceland), Tampere Biennale (Finland), Nordic Music Days (Sweden), November Music (Holland), SOUND (Scotland), Spitalfields Music Festival (London), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (England), and Santander Music Festival (Spain). Select upcoming engagements include concerts at Mozarteum Salzburg, and Darmstadt Music Festival.
Orchestra of the Swan asked the wonderful dancer Lana Williams to interpret my single with them (out on Signum Classics ) & now it’s a music video available on Apple Music! Click on the image below to access… Film devised & produced by Woodbury Recording Studios.
On Saturday night Joe Cutler was interviewed by Robert Worby for BBC R3’s New Music Show, talking about his composition process and improvisation. It’s a really interesting insight into how Joe develops his ideas and works with other musicians. During the interview they discuss his saxophone concerto, written for me and out on Birmingham Record Company/NMC Recordings, performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Ben Palmer (and featuring Ross Stanley on Hammond organ & ukulele). They also play a few excerpts as well as the third movement in full at the end of the interview. If you’re interested you can listen back at the link below… Enjoy! 🙂
Huge thanks to Marianne Windham and everyone at the Boileroom in Guildford for a brilliant livestream gig last week. If you missed it and would like to watch back, you can buy tix here. And these are a few shots of the soundcheck by Rob Blackham… Full gallery on Guildford Jazz’s Facebook page
Tonight MY IRIS are playing the Boileroom for Guildford Jazz… You can buy tickets to watch this live (7.30pm) here – tix are available until 6pm this evening.
We’ll be mixing in some new material …. CAN’T WAIT! 75 mins set followed by a bit of Q&A – you can send in your questions for us I believe…
Coming up on Wednesday night at 8pm… the Vortex are replaying my gig with Chris Montague and Ross Stanley from September on their YouTube channel. Details here (inc. details on how to donate): http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/event/trish-clowes-trio-replay/
Here’s a photo of the gig… was soooo amazing to play to a live audience… can’t wait for more of those experiences again. Until then, we hope you enjoy this gig! Tunes by all of us…
Joe Cutler’s new album is out on Birmingham Record Company/NMC Recordings and it features the saxophone concerto he wrote for me to play with the BBC Concert Orchestra (conducted by Ben Palmer, and also featuring Ross Stanley on Hammond… and ukulele). The recording is live, taken from the premiere performance last year at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It’s been receiving some great coverage… The Times gave it 4 stars, and this how the Guardian described it: ‘Part one is a piece of quizzical, fin-de-siècle romanticism; part two a cartoonish riot; part three a nightmarish slab of dystopian science-fiction, where Clowes’s tenor sax seems to serve as the sole representative of humanity.’ I also take this opportunity to congratulate Joe on being shortlisted for an Ivors Composer Award for this fabulous piece of writing.
You can read more about the album, and purchase it, here.
I might also add, it’s so great to have things like this going on whilst live performances are so rare at the moment… here’s to better times ahead in 2021! 🙂
Tonight you can watch the MY IRIS gig from the London Jazz Festival last month – it also features guest vocalist Lauren Kinsella. This gig felt totally amazing… first full band reunion! Includes a few new tunes too…
Re-stream starts at 8pm! And the link is here: https://www.606club.co.uk/account/videos/606-re-stream-trish-clowes-feat-lauren-kinsella/?f=
Hope you’re able to tune in! 🙂
