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Veryan Weston
Veryan Weston - pianist, composer, arranger and improviser.
Born in Sussex, UK, 3rd September 1950.
He received a fellowship from the Digswell Arts Trust in Hertfordshire that allowed him to continue his work exploring piano improvisation which included his research in to pentatonic scale relationships. While at Digswell, he co-founded and composed for the group Stinky Winkles who were voted 'Young jazz Musicians of 1979' by Greater London Arts Association. He performed music for film, the most notable being his work with Lol Coxhill on director Derek Jarman's Caravaggio (1986).
Weston's interest in collaborating with artists from other disciplines led him to earn a degree in performance art from Middlesex University and he also earned a master's degree in music composition from Goldsmith's College University in London. In the '80s and '90s, he worked with (among others) the Eddie Prévost Quartet, Lol Coxhill and Trevor Watts.
Trevor’s preoccupation with rhythmic structures and the inclusion of Ghanaian musicians in Moiré Music suited his own interests in the importance and beauty of rhythmic relationships between musicians which is also traceable later in virtually all his work as an improviser. They continue their very fruitful long-term relationship with concerts worldwide that also include other performers. The new Quantum Illusion project involves Veryan Weston on 'keystation' which is a relatively new departure for him in to the world of digital keyboard sound generation. It takes their shared 'Dialogues' project in to new places of exploring improvisation. There is still a jazz feel and sensibility about it, but because of the fact that they are both composers of some note, the improvisations always have a strong sense of structure
In the '90s, collaborations with Phil Minton included: the Ways duos consisting of a sizeable repertoire which has evolved after more than 20 years together; the three “Ways” recording projects has produced a diversity of songs by Schubert, Ives, Dolphy, Sullivan and Elvis Presley, Songs from a Prison Diary choral project commissioned for the Europa Festival in Le Mans which was awarded the Cornelius Cardew composition prize, a Taktlos Festival (Switzerland) chamber choir commission based on the life of Anarchist – Nestor Makhno, a quartet performing extracts from Joyce’s Finnegans wake, and 4Walls with Luc Ex and Michael Vatcher which was a strange synthesis of punk and contemporary jazz but which, like all the projects with Phil combine improvisation with songform. Most recently - Ways for an Orchestra was commissioned by the Angelica Festival (Bologna, Italy – 2017) and included selected material from their Ways projects arranged and composed for a chamber orchestra.
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Eternal Triangle: Gravity
by Jack Kenny
What a coup on the part of Jazz in Britain to celebrate the launch of their new label with veteran Trevor Watts. It is a great experience listening to an eighty-five-year-old playing like an unshackled Ornette Coleman. Jazz in Britain has set up a new music imprint: Jazz Now. The first release is Gravity by Eternal Triangle. Watts is a phenomenon. Just listen and enjoy the surge of music from this new group. What a celebration of the ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston: Discoveries on Tracker Action Organs
by Alberto Bazzurro
Nativo della Cornovaglia (1950) ma trasferitosi a Londra poco più che ventenne (1972), Veryan Weston, generalmente dedito al pianoforte, si rivolge in questo tutto sommato singolare album all'organo a canne, riunendovi sette improvvisazioni di durate anche molto dissimili (dai 2'48" della prima ai 24 dell'ultima) effettuate in sette chiese e sette città diverse nel marzo 2014. Il clima che si respira in questa ora abbondante di musica è scuro, cogitabondo, abbastanza dispersivo nel suo sdipanarsi, praticamente privo ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston: Discoveries on Tracker Action Organs
by John Eyles
This new solo album from keyboardist Veryan Weston was recorded in May 2014 on tracker action organs in seven churches located around England. The recordings here document some of the preparatory research that Weston did ahead of a tour of churches with tracker action organs. That tour involved Weston plus violinist Jon Rose and cellist Hannah Marshall, so this album should be considered a companion piece to Tuning Out (Emanem, 2015), the album recorded on the tour. As ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston / Jon Rose / Hannah Marshall: Tuning Out
by John Eyles
There is a very interesting project awaiting some lucky (and patient) individual, researching the role that churches played in the spread of improvised music in Britain. To clear up any ambiguity, that churches" refers to the buildings themselves rather than their human members. Any devotee of improvised music in Britain will probably have spent far more time in church than many (so-called) devout Christians, as churches are frequently used to host gigs and also as recording spaces. That has nothing ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston: Different Tesselations
by John Eyles
Different Tesselations must be considered as a companion piece to Tesselations for Luthéal Piano (Emanem 2003), the album on which Veryan Weston debuted his sequence of 52 closely linked pentatonic scales in a piece he called Tesselations"--so named, he said, because it contains structures which have, by coincidence, similarities with some of the principles of geometric tessellations." For the 2003 album, Weston recorded five pieces, each of which utilized from six to fourteen of the scales. He recorded the pieces ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston / Leo Svirsky / The Vociferous Choir: Different Tessellations
by Raul d'Gama Rose
In the realm of tessellations--the juxtaposition of elements into a coherent pattern--the only ones that could match Different Tessellations in terms of intrigue and seduction--composed by Veryan Weston and recorded here by prodigiously talented pianist Leo Svirsky and the Vociferous Choir--is Maurits C. Escher's Circle Limit III. The Escher is visual art at its finest, a tantalizing woodcut standing in all its maddening glory, against all other two- and three-dimensional art. But even this barely compares to Weston's musical vision, ...
Continue ReadingVeryan Weston: Allusions
by John Eyles
With the first batch of 2009 releases--this is the first--Emanem has abandoned jewel case packaging and opted for the far more appealing all-card version, a very welcome change indeed. For years, pianist Veryan Weston has been a stalwart of the label, in a variety of contexts including duos, trios and quartets---most recently with the fine quartet Caetitu (2008).
Allusions is only Weston's second solo album for the label, the first being Tesselations for Lutheal Piano (2003). That album was an ...
Continue ReadingReview by Massimo Ricci of "Make": Among several notable intuitions, pianist and composer Veryan Weston has been working for decades on the concept of tessellation. To quote from his website, "visual interlocking symmetries and geometric shapes are transferred to the audible world of pitches, rhythm and counterpoint, with the spirit and energy of jazz, improvisation and folk music always at the heart of the performance". Nothing rings truer after having lent our ears to this brilliant album, in which Weston presents the newest version of an existing work with the help of vocal conductor Christine Duncan and drummer Jean Martin. Other musicians involved are Felicity Williams and Alex Samaras (vocals), Jesse and Josh Zubot (violin), Anna Atkinson (viola), Andrew Downing (bass and cello), plus two vocal ensembles: Hidden Meanings Voices — a tentet — and The Element Choir, a unit featuring 45 improvising singers.