Saxophonist Trish Clowes has been described as “one of the most agile and original jugglers of improv and adventurous composition to have appeared in the UK in recent times” (John Fordham, the Guardian). All four of her releases for Basho Records have received critical acclaim. Born on May 11th 1984, Clowes was raised in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and moved to London in 2003 to study at the Royal Academy of Music, notably with saxophonist Iain Ballamy and composer Pete Churchill. Clowes was later honoured as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (2013). She formed her first group ‘Tangent’ following a development award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund (now Help Musicians UK) in 2008. Clowes’ first album ‘Tangent’ in 2010 featured this band, special guest pianist Gwilym Simcock and an orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley and was noted for its “promise – and ambitious vision” (Guardian). Her second album ‘and in the night-time she is there’ (2012) featured an improvising string quartet lead by Thomas Gould and Clowes recorded her “highly individual” (Schweiz am Sonntag) third album ‘Pocket Compass’ (2014) while a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, working with the BBC Concert Orchestra on three tracks.
Clowes has been commissioned by BBC Radio 3 on two occasions to write for the BBC Concert Orchestra. The first commission, ‘The Fox, the Parakeet and the Chestnut’, was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2014. The piece went on to win Clowes a BASCA British Composer Award in 2015. Clowes premiered her most recent commission, entitled ‘Loujean and Lucy’, at the Royal Festival Hall in November 2017 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Other significant achievements include a television appearance as part of BBC Proms Extra, a songs project called Under Your Wing with vocalist Norma Winstone and guitarist Mike Walker (broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 2014), solo appearances with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Celtic Connections 2014) and Northern Sinfonia, a debut at Wigmore Hall (2015) with the Heath Quartet and Gwilym Simcock and commissions for Onyx Brass and London Sinfonietta.
Alongside her work as a performer and composer Clowes has been curating her own new music project Emulsionsince 2012. Emulsion has hosted various events and festivals in London, Birmingham, Shrewsbury and at Cheltenham Music Festival, receiving coverage on BBC Radio 3 along the way, and to date has commissioned seventeen new works. Featured collaborators include ECM artists Food (Iain Ballamy and Thomas Strønen), pianist-composers Nikki Iles and Robert Mitchell and composers Joe Cutler and Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian.
https://www.trishclowes.com