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Kit Downes

Musician

Tell us a little about yourself I play the piano, organ, cello and compose. I love travelling and reading.

Who (or what) has most influenced you and your career? Early on, being in a choir when I was around eight years of age was a big influence on me, singing everything from Palestrina to Pärt seven days a week. Then listening to records by my heroes – such as Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Bill Frisell etc. Then later again, once I was studying, I was very influenced by my teachers and mentors, such as John Taylor, Iain Ballamy, and Nick Smart. I am lucky to have lots of inspiring people in my life, and they are a constant and powerful influence on me and my music.

What would you say is your greatest achievement to date? Recording my piano trio album for ECM Records (last week). But it is difficult to quantify achievements etc in a field like this, as sometimes the biggest musical breakthroughs happen on your own in a practice room!

Who is your all-time favourite artist and why? I can’t pick one thing of course, but at the moment I have been feeling very inspired by Jimmy Guiffre’s trio record called ‘61. Amazing to hear improvisers playing in such a ‘chamber’-like way – with such intense focus on dynamics and phrasing. I always come back to listening to Ravel also – the string quartet in particular.

What was the last CD or music download that you purchased? My friend Petter Eldh’s new live album – Koma Saxo (live) – which is a blast.

What are your plans for the future? To get through the pandemic as sane as possible, then pick up where I left off, hopefully! Also to try and continue all the cross-European collaborations I was part of before Brexit. It feels even more important to reach out now.

Finally, what is your ISM membership to you? I really value how ISM has helped me, in a few different ways, most recently with the access to the Viva La Visa scheme, which has hugely helped to de-mystify the extremely complicated travel regulations around both Brexit and Covid.

Kitdownes.com Kit Downes is a BBC Jazz Award winning, Mercury Music Award nominated, solo recording artist for ECM Records. He has toured the world playing piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands (ENEMY, Troyka and Elt) as well as with artists such as Squarepusher, Empirical, Benny Greb and Sam Amidon.Hehaswrittencommissions Amidon. He has written commissions for Cheltenham Music Festival, London Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble Klang at ReWire Festival, the Scottish Ensemble, Cologne Philharmonie and the WellcomeTrust. Wellcome Trust.

Kit performs solo pipe organ and solo piano concerts and also plays in collaborations with saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, composer Shiva Feshareki and with ENEMY. He is also currently working with violinist Aidan O’Rourke, composer with violinist Aidan O’Rourke, composer Max de Wardener and in an organ trio with Reinier Baas and Jonas Burgwinkel. He teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he himself studiedandwherehenowholds studied and where he now holds a Fellowship.

@kitdownes

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