News
NEWS
Maya Homburger at le.sens !!
I am delighted that our wonderful friend and amazing designer Leonie Sens has included me in her website . What an honour !
www.le-sens.de/le_sens_meets_mh.html
The London Jazz Composers Orchestra
has performed Barry Guy's composition DOUBLE TROUBLE III at the Jazz Fest Berlin on Saturday 1. November
Piano soloists were Marilyn Crispell and Angelica Sanchez. The sold-out Main Hall in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele provided the perfect space for a magnificent performance which was greeted with a standing ovation.
for more details please go to : www.berlinerfestspiele.de/jazzfest-berlin/programm/2025/kalender-01-11
preview:
www.ukjazznews.com/barry-guy-london-jazz-composers-orchestra-and-trio-at-jazzfest-berlin-2025
first reviews :
www.ukjazznews.com/jazzfest-berlin-2025-days-3-and-4
from the review by Sarah Grosser :
........This was the third public performance of "Double Trouble." A long piece with many parts. Barry commanded the seventeen players who were so syncronised, it really felt like he controlled them with his hands. Everyone seemed to be perfectly tuned in, perhaps this was due to the crystal clarity of the score, as Shannon had said. He was confident with an obvious vision of how each passage should be executed. Loads of shifts in dynamics, and subgroupings and solos. A lot of space for improvisation which was very exciting for a group of this size. There were times when the huge room felt like it could have been mistaken for a tiny New York City basement venue, listening to some avant-garde underground explosion.
The acoustics at the Berlin Festspiele were particularly satisfying, especially during a duet solo between Mette Rasmussen and violinist Philipp Wachsmann. The tone and clarity of the saxophone mixing with the violin strings were spine-tingly good. Their combined sonic vibrations paired with their expertise caused physical sensations to arise - goosebumps - and I found this to be the case for all members of the orchestra. They are all super qualified, as musicians and improvisers, such that their combination felt like much more than the sum of its parts. Although there were moments that were busy and chaotic, it never felt overwhelming. It was very easy to hear each and every member's contribution and role in contributing to the overall masterpiece.
Amidst the more chaotic parts, there was an epic, uplifting, triumphant theme, which presented itself about halfway through the piece, played with such passion that it reduced me to tears. Needless to say, when the theme triumphantly returned near the tail end of the performance - the musicians united as one and the piece was honoured so beautifully. There were so many individual talents on the stage. When I initially saw the listing of performers, with so many big names, I was wondering how they were going to have their moment, or if they would simply just be part of the unified sound. How they would stand out. I told this to Barry’s good friend and frequent collaborator, pianist Jordina Millá, who had been watching the rehearsals. "Barry makes it work," she said. I didn't quite understand what she meant by this at the time, but I can confirm that Barry does indeed make it work. Apparently this performance was recorded. I would do anything to have a copy, because I need it in my life.....
The legendary London Jazz Composers Orchestra has been at the forefront of improvised music for 55 years. The group features top European musicians from both the jazz and classical field. Highly acclaimed in North America and Europe, the pioneering orchestra is a Who's Who of virtuoso improvising musicians, exploring the relationship and tension between composed and improvised music and between new music and jazz. Director Barry Guy's compositions provide a structure for the musicians' explosive solo and collective improvisations.
our latest CD is :
MCD2501 HARMOS - KRAKÓW by Barry Guy
with the
London Jazz Composers Orchestra
official release date 4. July
Barry Guy bass director
Agustí Fernández piano
Michael Niesemann alto sax
Torben Snekkestad tenor & soprano saxes
Jürg Wickihalder alto sax
Simon Picard tenor sax
Julius Gabriel baritone sax
Konrad Bauer trombone
Andreas Tschopp trombone
Alan Tomlinson trombone
Henry Lowther trumpet
Martin Eberle trumpet
Rich Laughlin trumpet
Marc Unternährer tuba
Phil Wachsmann violin
Bruno Chevillon bass
Lucas Niggli drums, percussion
this CD is a re-release from the 6-CD box set published in 2022 on the NOTTWO label (MW1027-2)
from the liner notes by John Sharpe :
Fifty years and counting. In March 2020 one of the most important large groups in European jazz, The London Jazz Composers Orchestra celebrated its golden anniversary over three days in Krakow which culminated in the triumphant performance of "Harmos" heard here. Long a staple of the LJCO repertoire, with its beautiful central tune, it's one of leader Barry Guy's most approachable works. This rendition was powerful and moving, studded throughout with absolute dynamite individual contributions, and furnished a fitting conclusion to a fabulous event. ........
.......It was an incredibly stirring and moving experience which well merited the consequent prolonged standing ovation. In his notes to the 1989 edition of "Harmos", Guy finished by saying "For this one I aimed for the soul!" He assuredly hit his target.
ROUGH by Barry Guy
We are pleased to release this link to the recording of Barry Guy's composition "Rough"
based on Samuel Beckett's "Rough for Radio I" with the great Swiss Ensemble Camerata Variabile
together with the amazing American Soprano Katherine Dain.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApHXRXOtzw
LIMITED EDITION of STATEMENTS V-XI , BARRY GUY, solo bass
this special limited edition of Barry Guy's first solo LP is now getting very rare, and there are only
10 copies for sale with original art work by either Barry Guy himself or by the following artists:
Vanche (Belgium) - Hans Husel (Germany) - Jan Erik Willgohs (Norway) - Paul Mosse (Ireland)
Price enquiries and orders : please contact Mats Gustafsson - mats@matsgus.com
Barry Guy, featured in Duncan Heining's latest book
The limited edition hardback version of Duncan Heining’s brilliant book ‘And Did Those Feet… Six British Jazz Composers’ has sold out!
BUT, it’s now available WORLDWIDE in a paperback edition via Amazon’s ‘print on demand’ service.
www.jazzinbritain1.bandcamp.com/merch/and-did-those-feet-six-british-jazz-composers-by-duncan-heining
other news:
Barry Guy's short composition WAITING written for the Calmus Ensemble relates directly to "all this this here" for the Blue Shroud Band, since it is based on Barra Ó Seaghdha’s beautiful poem "Waiting" which forms the second part of the big band composition.
Listen to it here :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Z1yPieASo&list=PLCUOrDr0MbX3Hy3NLmXeqUk0zqDgry4wv&index=10
MAGICAL MOBILES
by Barry Guy for bass clarinet and violin
We just received this U tube Link to a very nice live recording of
this composition from February 2020.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyflOxELlkg
The LJCO Box set with 6 CDs released by Marek Winiarski on his NOTTWO Label
Not Two Records MW-2 1027-2
has been honoured with the « German Record Critics’ Award »
as a recording of exceptional artistry and selected as one of the
« Quarterly Best » of New Releases for the First Quarter 2023
TWO BOX Sets with 5 and 6 CDs have been released by Marek Winiarski on his NOTTWO Label
On these recordings you will find an amazing series of concerts from the "Barry Guy and Friends Residency" in November 2018
including on CD Number 5 the première of Barry's composition "for to end yet again".
And also the complete set of recordings from the London Jazz Composers Orchestra 50th anniversary celebration days in March 2020. On CD Number 6 there is a stunning performance of Harmos-Krakow which alone is worth buying the whole set !
www.nottwo.com/mw1031
and
www.nottwo.com/mw1027
"FLYWAYS"
Barry Guy's composition for the ensemble CAMERATA VARIABILE who commissioned him to create a piece for Mezzo Soprano, Piano and String Quartet, was premièred on 9. March in the "Kirche St. Peter" , Zürich. This occasion was filmed and recorded live.
www.vimeo.com/768431819
The wish of the ensemble was, that the piece might relate to bird migration.
A small excerpt from the text created for this composition by our Irish poet friend Barra Ó Seaghdha :
If they had remained
If they had remained on the ground
If they had remained
If they had not risen
If the birds had not risen
If that bird-mass had not abruptly risen
If their unruly upward burst had not so quickly resolved into a fluent order, before us and beyond us
If…
How would we have felt the silence before they rose?
How would we have known?
Was there silence before they rose?
Now we hear the silence before they rose.
We tell ourselves there was silence before they rose.
There was silence
from Barry's programme note:
Barra’s many facetted expressions on the subject suggested musical resolutions that slip and slide according to the tensions offered in his text. My task has been therefore to combine all of his thoughts into a rational tapestry of sounds that allow us to fly with the birds, so to speak.
