Hilary Jeffery – brass
Simon Rose – reeds
Jeffery and Rose employ the mobility of their instruments, playing music for special locations by integrating spatiality in their performance. The music is composed according to where they are playing. It pays attention to the setting, the particular features of the place, at the given time. The location’s acoustic qualities become an essential compositional element. Reflecting these concerns, they have a particular interest in working with film makers. Most recently they collaborated with artist / film maker Julie Myers in her commission for MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK.
29 JUNE 2017
NORTH TWELTH STREET
film by Julie Myers, commissioned by Milton Keynes Gallery
20 SEPTEMBER 2016
DEVIL’S HILL
22 JULY 2014
STEPHANUSKIRCHEwidth=”640″ height=”360″
‘Beginning’ is the opening section of a thirty-minute piece performed in Stephanuskirche, Berlin, Germany on the 24th April 2014. The church provided a huge, inspirationally resonant acoustic space for the duo’s early encounter. The piece begins with Hilary Jeffery’s trombone sounding long, sonorous tones and when Simon Rose’s baritone saxophone joins it is not through mimeses but by the juxtaposition of fast, percussive tonguing that ricochets around the churches interior. From the outset the unusual musical discourse develops in concert with the church’s architecture that proves as important to the music’s composition as the choice of instruments (Oliveros, 2005). As Beginning unfolds the players separate, moving to opposite sides of the church, exaggerating the already huge resonance through call and response. Continuing they encircle the audience, joining at the back of the church to return via the aisle, arriving at the front of the altar where Hilary Jeffery continues to climb stairs leading to the pulpit, initiating a trombone led sound sermon that completes the half-hour piece.