As my year forges on, another new work emerges.

My next outing will the first sharing of a collaboration with video art pioneer Madelon Hooykaas called “In the footsteps”.

Still from video “in the footsteps’ image: Madelon Hooykaas
Still from video “in the footsteps’ image: Madelon Hooykaas

I met Madelon thanks to my work with Delia Derbyshire Day, as Madelon came to DD Day 2016 (a visual art/film themed event at HOME arts centre, Manchester) and spoke about working with Delia. She gifted me a book of her work with Elsa Stansfield. And so I gifted her a copy of my latest album. She liked it and said she would like to work with me.

In May 2018, we visited the LYC (Li Yuan Chia) museum at Banks (Cumbria) together as well as Li’s grave at Lanercost Priory and Gilsland, where Delia lived when she went to Cumbria in the 1970’s. It was a gloriously sunny day and we talked improvisation, nature and Madelon’s connections with Li and Delia.

Then Manchester Art Gallery put on their recent exhibition to which Li and his LYC museum is central. And we will close this exhibition as part of a symposium about LYC and the museum, forming an evening of specially commissioned artistic interventions, on Wednesday 6 March 2019 at Manchester Art Gallery from 6pm.

I am excited and honoured to be working with Madelon. It is inspiring to work with a dedicated artist who was a pioneer at the same time as Delia and Li were working away. We have found many connections between our work and intentions that I hope will come out in our performance as we surrender to the present moment.

prepared piano 1

I have had much fun exploring prepared piano (putting objects inside a grand piano to make for some quirky new sounds) and forming my own pentatonic (5 note) scale based around the harmonic series (the overtones we hear when we hear one musical note).

Do come along if you can to our semi improvised performance experience (approx 15 mins duration) with music/sound/voice and live drawing/moving image. With a post-performance Q&A hosted by the lovely Dr David Butler (University of Manchester, Senior Lecturer in Drama and Screen Studies and lead researcher of Delia Derbyshire Archive).

More info on my current projects/live page.