Last May, thanks to a generous bursary from Sky Arts, we offered three Paraorchestra musicians a paid 12-month residency with us. With guidance and mentoring from Paraorchestra Artistic Director, Charles Hazlewood, Associate Music Director, Lloyd Coleman, and Producer, Helen Edwards, our Musicians in Residence have been exploring the horizons of what an orchestra can be in the 21st century.

In this series of blogs, we catch up with Tilly Chester, Jonny Leitch, and Patrick Phillip to see where dedicated time and resource to develop their own artistic practice has taken them, and where they hope it will lead them in the future.

 

CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF?

I’m a viola player and violinist and I’ve recently started creating music. I studied at the Royal College of Music and I’ve been a member of Paraorchestra for almost a decade, since I was 16. I’m also currently training at UWE Bristol to become a music therapist and I’ve been working throughout the pandemic as an NHS Mental Health Care Assistant.

When I’m not working, or playing, you’ll either find me at the circus, or on a boat. I am a born pyromaniac. I perform regularly with fire props, and I train in aerial hammock. I’ve sailed most of my life then in the middle of the pandemic, I made the decision to follow a lifelong dream and move onto a narrowboat. Boat life has had its unique challenges, but I absolutely love it and the boating community are lovely – and luckily they don’t seem to mind my music-making too much!

 

WHAT ARE YOU FOCUSING ON IN YOUR RESIDENCY?

I’m using my residency to explore other genres that classical musicians aren’t typically trained in, like electronic music, hip hop, and drum and bass so I could find different sounds and ways of playing in different genres.

I really enjoy playing classical music, especially in quartets, and I have always really loved playing in orchestras. I always knew, however, that I didn’t want to only do classical or only play in orchestras. Much like every other aspect of my life I wanted to mix and match. I think my classical training gave me the skills I needed to be able to have a career filled with an eclectic mix of different musical experiences.

I’ve been working with Mark Woodstock and his group called the Nectar Collective. Mark and I have formed a violin and vinyl duo – he mixes drum and bass and I play violin live to it. I’ve been experimenting with pedals – like guitar pedals – to experiment with different effects and expand my sound set. This then inspired me to have a go at writing some of my own music using a loop pedal. In support of this, Paraorchestra introduced me to a brilliant composer and electronic musician called Dave Johnzy who has been mentoring me in this area.

The other aspect I’ve been focusing on is looking at combining music and circus. Last year I worked with Cirque Bijou on Sleep Walkers at Camp Bestival where I learned how to play Viola in the air. This got me thinking about ways I could truly integrate my musical abilities with circus skills. So, I’ve started working with an aerial coach to learn aerial hammock and figure out ways to play violin inside it. (An aerial hammock is like a huge suspended drape of fabric  – rather than rope, or a trapeze, for example – that is joined at the bottom which I found is much more accessible to me). So, I wrote a song to accompany my aerial performance and now perform the two at the same time – ending with me playing upside down in the hammock and spinning around.

a young white woman with red hair dressed in black and wearing dark-rimmed glasses and balck headphones. Tilly is playing a viola.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE KEY BENEFITS OF THE RESIDENCY FOR YOU SO FAR?

The residency has given me the means and opportunity to develop my skills as an artist, which a musician wouldn’t normally get once they leave conservatoire. There are three key things for me:

Firstly, the funding means that I can take time off from work, as it funds my development days and it allows me to pay people to come and work with me.

Secondly, it provides structured support with regular mentoring sessions with Charles, Lloyd on a creative and artistic front, and Helen, Paraorchestra’s Producer who has superhuman skills in making things happen across all of the Paraorchestra projects. So as well as helping me explore my ideas, I also receive practical advice around things like budgeting and marketing myself.

The third benefit is the great mentors outside of Paraorchestra that they’ve introduced me to who have really changed how I think about my musicianship and myself as an artist.

WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO GET FROM THE PROGRAMME?

I’m hoping that by the end of the residency, I’ll have more knowledge about electronic music and that my drum and bass act will be more refined. I’ll have new improvising techniques too, new effects that I can use on my violin, and a bank of fresh ideas to build on.

In the future, I hope I can do more work in the drum and bass scene and write more of my own music so that if someone records a track, and they ask me to put a violin or viola part on it – I can. In fact, I can now put a whole string section on in my new home recording studio which I was lucky to get as part of the residency.

More generally, I want to continue developing myself, not just as a musician but as a well-rounded artist, which will lead to new pastures.

 

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH PARAORCHESTRA?

I’ve grown up playing with Paraorchestra – it’s part of my identity and I feel part of the team. They’ve supported me in ways that I could never have imagined and opened my mind up to creative possibilities since I was very young.

The flexibility of the residency has been key to my development. Every step of the journey I’ve been inspired by new things and found new paths to explore. The possibilities of the residency are seemingly endless. I’m always coming to meetings with some wild new idea and it’s just so amazing to be funded to work with people who can say ‘Sure! Let’s find a way together to make that happen!’.

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The Paraorchestra Musicians in Residency programme was created in recognition of a lack of professional support and development opportunities for musicians identifying as D/deaf, disabled, or neurodiverse.

The bursary from Sky Arts, which formed part of Charles Hazlewood’s appointment as their Ambassador for Music, will support a second year of residencies, for which we will shortly start recruiting from our existing pool of musicians. Our longer term ambition is to develop a regular residency programme for disabled musicians and creatives from 2023 onwards as part of a wider scheme of professional artist development.