Profiles
VERYAN WESTON - PIANIST
Born in 1950, and moved from Cornwall to London in 1972 and began playing as a freelance jazz pianist as well as developing as an improviser at Little Theatre Club.
1975 – 85: Residency & fellowship for Digswell Arts Trust (Hertfordshire). Activities included:
Collaborations with other media artists (Steve Cochrane, music for Derek Jarman Film).
Work on written theoretical material, commissioned by The Digswell Arts Trust.
Co-ordinating music workshops, supported by Eastern Arts Association.
Co-founded and composed for young local group - Stinky Winkles, voted ‘Young Musician of 1979’ by Greater London Arts Association and won first prizes in France, Spain and Poland.
Duos with Lol Coxhill - first released recordings.
Throughout 1980s and early 90s worked with Eddie Prévost Quartet, Trevor Watts’ Moiré Music and Lol Coxhill and Phil Minton. Major festivals have included Zurich, Berlin, Nickelsdorf, Karlsruhr, Warsaw, Wroclaw, San Sebastian, Bombay, Vancouver, Nancy, Aukland, Nevers, Washington, Lille, Houston, Le Mans, Strasbourg, Bologna and Victoriaville.
Ensemble projects with Minton:
Duo - Ways, Ways Past, and....Past – diverse songs, originals & improvisation structures.
Songs from a Prison Diary – French commission for 25 singers (Cardew comp. prize 1991).
Naming the Animals – a quartet with Lianne Carol and Ian Shaw, words by Adrian Mitchell.
Mouthfull of ecstasy – with John Butcher, Roger Turner, texts from Joyce’s Finnegans wake.
Makhno – for chamber choir – commissioned by Taktlos Festival 1997.
4Walls – a quartet with Luc Ex and Michael Vatcher. Current ongoing European tours.
Other recent duo collaborations with:
Caroline Kraabel – duets that explore acoustic phenomena related to two instruments and how these sounds interact in specific acoustic spaces.
Trevor Watts – exploring new possibilities in an open improvising situation.
Jon Rose - improvisations using different acoustic keyboards and violins with selected tunings derived from science, history and the imagination.
Hugh Metcalfe - Films by Hugh, images of objects, animals, humans, holidays, journeys, unfold, transform, collide and provide the basis for accompanying duet improvisations.
Local activities:
(1995-6) playing in rhythm section for “Changes” jazz club in North London with many top British jazz artists. Awarded A4E National Lottery support to give series of workshops/concerts with John Edwards & Mark Sanders titled “Playing Together” in East Anglia (1998).
Director, arranger and pianist for Lindsay Cooper Song Project (1999). European festivals – Taktlos (Zurich), Angelica (Bologna, commissioned arrangement of “Oh Moscow” for orchestra), Moers (Germany) and Roccella Jonica (Italy).
Recent solo project – Tessellations for solo piano, supported by Peter Whittingham Foundation in 2000. The one hour piece is a series of improvisations devised as one exposition on relationships between closely connected pentatonic scales researched over 30 years. Concerts include – 1. TonArt Festival (for Swiss Radio in Basle), 2. Bordeaux, and talk to undergraduates at Bordeaux University Maths Faculty, 3. Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments on only original Lutheal Piano and 4. Granada, presentation of published paper titled New Pentatonic Scale Relationships with Visual Parallels at Joint Meeting of The International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture and Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science.
Recent group project -
~SOL6~
Veryan Weston- Piano/Voice, Luc Ex-Bass, Ingrid Laubrock-Saxophone/Voice, Hannah Marshall-Cello/Voice, Mandy Drummond-Viola/Voice, Tony Buck-Drums/Percussion
Sol6 is a group put together by UK pianist Veryan Weston and Dutch Ex-punk bass guitarist – Luc Ex. It has an unusual instrumentation which almost leans towards chamber music, but then there is the ‘punky’ energy and often high spirited open improvisations that are not afraid to become lyrical either.
Sol combine composed and tightly rehearsed pieces with related improvisations that link and also reflect the composed material. This is a tradition and style which Luc and Veryan have helped develop together in previous projects and groups like Roof and 4Walls. Sol’s repertoire contains a combination of more simple ‘Ex’ pieces, and harmonically structured ‘Weston’ pieces and arrangements which also include material by composers such as Steve Lacy and George Russell.
It's not necessarily the easiest way because often one side can interfere with the other and for this reason, musicians usually prefer to stick to one process of music-making. Luc and Veryan, on the contrary, feel as free as fish in the sea, when the musical territory can be open enough to dive in and out of noisy grooves or complicated harmonies as well as into completely free and abstract improvisation. These different processes of making music can effectively rub shoulders side-by-side; they sometimes provide focus and concentration and at other times a feeling of release and freedom, and this creates the possibility for an infinite continuum of change and development in performance.
As well as this, full advantage is taken of there being four players who can also sing. Each singer features a composer. Cellist - Hannah Marshall sings songs by Charles Ives, pianist - Veryan Weston sings songs by Eric Satie, viola player - Mandy Drummond sings songs by Burt Bacharach and saxophonist – Ingrid Laubrock sings songs by Weill and Eisler.
These songs, pieces and improvisations are woven nicely together as a big musical adventure. You will have to listen to more than a 3-minute sound bite to get the full picture. More time is required to unravel a very complex and detailed musical story with an eclecticism which seems to know no traditional boundaries. The music is played with intensity, pleasure and an occasional smile