Dr Trish Clowes

Saxophonist and composer Trish Clowes has been described as “an improviser to be reckoned with” (Downbeat Magazine) and “one of the brightest stars to have emerged during the so-called British jazz boom” (The Irish Times). Clowes is currently an Associate Artist at Wigmore Hall (London), and her recorded music can be found on US indie label Greenleaf Music, and UK labels Stoney Lane Records & Basho Records. Having been previously commissioned to write for ensembles such as the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, Clowes appeared as a guest artist with the NDR Big Band (Germany) in November 2024, performing a new set of her own music entitled ‘Radiant Resistance’.

Notable career performances include the NDR Concert Hall in Hanover and Rolf Liebermann Studio in Hamburg (with the NDR Big Band), Barbican, Toronto Jazz Festival, Rochester International Jazz Festival (US), Royal Festival Hall, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Wigmore Hall, Celtic Connections (with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), Women in (e)motion Festival (Germany), National Opera House (Ireland), Galway Jazz Festival, Karlsruhe Jazz Festival, and broadcasts for BBC 2 Proms Extra (TV), BBC Radio 3, NDR (Germany), and Radio Bremen. In May 2024, Clowes played a short run of dates in the UK & Ireland with US trumpeter Dave Douglas, presenting compositions for a new quintet EYES UP, appearing at London’s Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and Bray Jazz Festival.

Clowes has recorded a number of critically acclaimed albums as leader, including ‘A View with a Room’ (2022) on Greenleaf Music, directed by Dave Douglas. She has also released five albums on UK indie label Basho Records, and two independent albums on Bandcamp. Many of these recordings feature her longstanding quartet MY IRIS. Her recent duo album with pianist Ross Stanley, ‘Journey to Where’, is out on Stoney Lane Records (released March 2024). In 2019, Clowes premiered Joe Cutler’s saxophone concerto ‘Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii’ with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the recording of which is released on Cutler’s album of the same name on NMC Recordings. Clowes is also a featured soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra on Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian’s debut album for NMC Recordings, and with Orchestra of the Swan on two albums for Signum Classics.

A regularly commissioned composer, Clowes’s recent projects include writing for Riot Ensemble (supported by the Vaughan Williams Foundation), NDR Big Band (project entitled ‘Radiant Resistance’), London Sinfonietta (various), National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (for the BBC Proms 2022), Orchestra of the Swan, BBC Radio 3 (Postcards from Composers), and Architecture of Autonomy (producing music for a dance-film). Clowes’s music video ‘Abbott & Costello’, directed by Rose Hendry, was shortlisted for Voice of a Woman Awards 2019, and screened at Cannes Lions Festival and Aesthetica Short Film Festival. From 2012-14 Clowes was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and during that time she was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to write for the BBC Concert Orchestra, a piece that won her a British Composer Award in 2015, entitled ‘The Fox, the Parakeet and the Chestnut’. This was followed by another BBC Radio 3 commission in 2017, also for the BBC Concert Orchestra, entitled ‘Loujean and Lucy’.

Clowes released a series of albums on Basho Records from 2010-2019, working with artists such as Gwilym Simcock, Jules Buckley (conducting two orchestral tracks on her debut album ‘Tangent’), and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by André de Ridder (three tracks on her third album ‘Pocket Compass’). Clowes has also collaborated with Norma Winstone, Heath Quartet, Donald Grant (Elias Quartet), Mike Walker, Food (Iain Ballamy & Thomas Strønen), Louise McMonagle (Riot Ensemble), vocal ensemble Juice, and appeared on the soundtrack for the feature documentary ‘Ronnie’s’ by Oliver Murray, with music composed by Alex Heffes.

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 – she was later honoured as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (2013). Clowes holds a PhD in Musical Composition, awarded by Birmingham City University (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) in 2020. Her research project was centred around the activities of her new music festival Emulsion, exploring collective practice and audience interaction through her compositions, and was funded by a STEAM Scholarship (2016). Clowes is an ambassador for the charity forRefugees.
 

Visit Trish Clowes' website

Photo - Rose Hendry