Videos

Tinker, innovator, plagiarist, Spy’ for MW 23.05.18 / for Emoji-Choir and Solo Trumpet

A 7 minute self-commissioned piece for Emoji Choir and solo trumpet. This piece features a choir of non-trained voices who, with the unique use of emojis as a newly formalised notation tool, form a sonic backdrop for solo improvised trumpet.

Metamorphosis – Etude for Trumpet and Lump-Hammer – 23.05.18

A 7 minute self-commissioned work to seek a real and fully immersive improvisational state. Each Hammer blow changes the state and playability of the instrument, forcing the player to find new ways performing the piece.

Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms
26.11.16 / A 50min work commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF), premiered in November 2016 featuring Norwegian musician, Thomas Strønen.

A setting for 4 voices (SATB), electronics, drums and trumpet of Gertrude Stein’s ground-breaking stream of consciousness work (1914): ‘Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms’.  A work heralded as ‘a masterpiece of verbal cubism’, Stein’s unique writing style challenges traditional alignments of words addressing instead their underlying sound and rhythmic cadence: ‘By departing from conventional meaning, grammar and syntax, she attempted to capture ‘moments of consciousness’ independent of time and memory.’ This contemporary interpretation of Stein’s work is a cross-disciplinary symbiosis of composition and improvisation, setting her unorthodox text for four-piece vocal ensemble (SATB) and improvisers: drums/percussion/electronics and trumpet. This work features improviser and ECM recording artist Thomas Strønen (drums and electronics) and was featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Hear and Now’ live broadcast from Huddersfield.

Thomas Strønen – Drums/Percussion/Electronics
Percy Pursglove – Trumpet
Daniel Galbreath – Conductor
Christina Jones – Soprano
Suzie Purkis – Alto
Ashley Turnell – Tenor
Adrian Horsewood – Baritone

Post-autonomous Autonomy
A 5min piece for solo trumpet and public house – The Spotted Dog, Digbeth, Birmingham – 01.03.16

This piece utilises the voices of people in pub to create an improvisational backdrop. A sheet of instructions guides drinkers through a 5-minute journey of sound in time. This piece was premiered in a renowned music-friendly pub in the heart of Birmingham, and features participants from the pub and solo improvising trumpet. The success of this piece lies in empowering the audience as participants, these massed vocal participant/performers who ordinarily only ever act as listeners now become the work itself.  This piece was performed in the interval of a gig, the audience/participant level of intoxication at this point of the evening no doubt added to the intensity and commitment of their performance!