Matthew Bourne

Matthew Bourne is performing his own improvised material, including a new collaboration with the London Sinfonietta, at the ensemble's Written/Unwritten festival, 2 - 4 June 2011

Born October 6th, 1977, Avebury, England; pianist and composer Matthew Bourne first came to national attention as one of the winners of the Perrier Jazz Awards in London, 2001. In this same year Bourne graduated from Leeds College of Music.

Bourne’s unique ability to create powerful imagery through an esoteric piano language along with spoken word samples earned him the Innovation Award at the BBC Radio Jazz Awards in 2002. Bourne continued to develop this methodology, delivering intense and highly personal performances at an international level - many of these becoming the focus of Bourne’s PhD research, undertaken at the University of Leeds. During this period Bourne was the recipient of the IJFO (International Jazz Festivals Organisation) International Jazz Award in 2005, performing at key international festivals in mainland Europe, Scandinavia, Canada and the U.S.A.

By this stage, Bourne had also become the co-leader of the Electric Dr M, Distortion Trio and Bourne/Davis/Kane and was beginning to work in a wider context, in the UK and Europe, with other international jazz musicians and with producers such as Sam Hobbs and Dan Berridge (AKA Broadway Project) - a successful partnership that has resulted in the music for two albums: In Finite (2006), One Divided Soul (2009) and 3 award-winning films: Indians (Richard Penfold, UK, 2005), Here is Always Somewhere Else (Rene Daalder, USA, 2008) and Flikan (The Girl) (Fredrik Edfeldt, Sweden, 2009).

Throughout the last decade Bourne’s particular brand of individuality and virtuosity, combined with an uncanny ability to communicate with his audiences attracted commissions from major festivals/organisations to write and produce large-scale projects: Phimotic (Italian Instabile Orchestra/CMN, 2005), The Glenn Miller Project (Leeds Fuse Festival, 2006), Ending (Conservatoires UK, 2007) and Songs from a Lost Piano (Arts Council/Sound and Music, 2009); music for dance Mekwae and The Dancical (RJC Dance, 2004/6) as well as classical composition …and I didn’t fall in Love, again. Autumn 2004 (BBC/London Jazz Festival, 2004); and collaborative electronic works Phone Book (Micheal Tippett Foundation/Bath International Festival, 2006) and Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals (FuseLeeds ’09).

Bourne has released 4 albums – The Electric Dr. M (2002), Dismantling the Waterfall – with Dave Stapleton (2007), The Molde Concert (2007) and Lost Something with Bourne/Davis/Kane (2008).

Bourne has continued to pursue his interest in music education, working for a number of years at his Alma Mater, lecturing in principal study piano, composition and composition analysis and became Artist in Residence in 2008.

Bourne continues to be in constant demand as a pianist/analogue synthesist and has recorded and performed with Franck Vigroux, Laurent Dehors, Marc Ducret, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Andrea Centazzo, Seaming To, Pete Wareham, Barre Phillips, Roger Turner, Paul Dunmall, Tony Bevan and Nostalgia ‘77.

Currently, Bourne is focusing on three projects for 2011/12:
• Montauk Variations – A new suite of innovative piano textures. No samples, no funny stuff – just Piano.
• Memorymoog – Intuitive analogue synthesis using the Moog Memorymoog synthesizer with visuals by Michael England.
• Matthew Bourne’s first EVER band as a leader – with Seaming To and Semay Wu.

With each of these projects, Bourne brings his unique philosophy into play - where the unexpected meets with the beautiful and the emotive with the disgusting.

Awards

Perrier Young Jazz Award, Musician Category, 2001
BBC Radio Jazz Awards, Innovation Award, 2002
International Jazz Festivals Organization (IJFO) International Jazz Award, 2005
Braaid Eisteddfod, Overseas Award, Instrumental Competition, 2007
International Visual Communications Association (IVCA) Bronze Award for Music (shared with Dan Berridge), 2007