Further Reading
22nd March 2024
Recorded live at Wigmore Hall in 2021, this collaboration between saxophonist and pianist is a charmingly sophisticated affair containing as many pleasingly interwoven musical references as you care to mention.
Acclaimed saxophonist Trish Clowes and pianist Ross Stanley are to release a compelling new album of their adventurous original writing, free improvisations and personal favourites, recorded at London's Wigmore Hall.
"One of the most agile and original jugglers of improv and adventurous composition to have appeared in the UK in recent times ..." - The Guardian
Performing and collaborating together for a number of years, the duo's debut has been a long time in the making, and features four originals by Clowes and Stanley, alongside intriguing arrangements of music dedicated to their respective heroes, Wayne Shorter and John Taylor. At the heart of their ever-evolving programme of music lies interpretations of a Marcel Dupre prelude (Prelude III from Trois Preludes et Fugues) and Herbert Howells' Gloucester Service - two beloved works from Stanley's time as an organ scholar at Marlborough College.
Stanley, who has toured with a stellar-line up of artists, from Tom Jones to the BBC Concert Orchestra, also penned the piece Ashford Days, in homage to the late John Taylor. The ever-inventive Clowes already has a number of successful albums both under her own name and her band, MY IRIS, with recent notable commissions including writing for the London Sinfonietta, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (for the BBC Proms 2022), Orchestra of the Swan and BBC Radio 3. She was inspired by Wayne Shorter's playing on a bootleg recording she came across from 1965 at the Village Vanguard for her own track, Decently Ripped. Her piece Sarah, meanwhile, is titled after Sarah Gilbert, the vaccinologist, written at a time when a much-needed social life, and space for expression, was beginning to resume across the country. The composition uses specific saxophone multiphonics as a framework for the writing across the whole form, with the close of the track finishing with an extended improvisation from the duo in response to the material.
Journey to Where is released on 22nd March 2024 on CD and all digital platforms with Birmingham-based label Stoney Lane Records, followed by a limited-edition double LP release in early summer.
