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Portrait by Martin Stewart
A concert bringing together three unique Glasgow-based choirs with culturally diverse memberships which include New Scot singers and singers from other migrant backgrounds and the wider local community.
Composed the music for a full-length show with collaborative conceptual arts duo KINUK, as part of Symphony Nova Scotia's Pjila’si Sessions.
New Music CD Recording
Singer-songwriter Chris Helme's album, World of My Own
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Alongside composer/improviser Jeff Reilly and DJ Uncle Fester, I am composing and arranging music for 20-piece ensemble, to back the MC Aquakultre in ‘Parallel Worlds and Portals’. Our show will premiere as part of the 2026 Open Waters Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I conducted the World Premiere of Elif Karlidag’s work Chorea with the massed ensemble of the CoMA Summer School at the University of Keele in August 2025, working with my co-director Lore Lixenberg. It was an honour to be amongst the amazing array of tutors at the amazing Summer School, and I have many memories to cherish.
I was honoured to conduct the Octandre Ensemble in four Modules from Sinan Savaskan’s epic cycle, Many Stares after semi-nocturnal Zeiss-blink. The sinfonietta album will be release don the Métier label in 2026. We are grateful to the Vaughan Williams Foundation, the PRS Foundation, the Hinrichsen Foundation and private donors for their generous support.
Britten Pears Arts runs the Friday Afternoons project annually, in honour of the song cycle by Benjamin Britten. I was chosen as one of three composers four the UK, to co-create a new folk song with young people. I collaborated with the children at Culross Primary School on our song, ’The Witches, the Whale and the Blacksmith’s Tale’, which will form part of the Big Sing at Snape Maltings (November 2025).
I was honoured to compose original music for the RSNO’s Sounds of the Deep concert which played to thousands of schoolchildren around Scotland.
Keyboards for the Lacunas Music Society
Malcolm Lindsay invited me to play keyboards in his ‘Lacunas’ band for a show featuring songs by him and Yvonne Lyon, spoken words by Blythe Duff, and beautiful images and video by Melanie Sims.
Octandre Ensemble workshopped composer Patrick John Jones’s ‘Immense Bleak Electric Advertisement of God’, inspired by lunar vintage photography.
Octandre Ensemble workshopped composer Patrick John Jones’s ‘Immense Bleak Electric Advertisement of God’, inspired by lunar vintage photography, scored for sinfonietta. The project marked the culmination of his Leverhulme Research Fellowship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London).
Compilation of the segues from Chris Helme's 'World of my Own.'
I brought together the material I composed and recorded for Chris Helme’s ‘World of my Own’ album to make my own album, ’Sunrise 545’. The album comprises the segues both on their own, as little miniatures, but also in the context of Chris’s songs, to showcase the sophistication of what I have done, musically. The artwork, of a piece wit the original album, is by The Seasick Sailor.
Frederick Bernas cut together some old public domain sci-fi films to make little micro-movies to publicise the release. So I have ended up with ‘Films from the Music’, instead of ‘Music from the Film’.
Arrangement of Richard Thompson's song, 'Beeswing', for the Carmel Bach festival, USA.
The Californian guitar and violin duo Fire and Grace asked me to make an octet arrangement of Richard Thompson’s song, ‘Beeswing’ for their appearance at the Carmel Bach Festival 2024, featuring Maeve Gilchrist. They also asked me to arrange the classic song, ’Danny Boy’. The arrangements will be perfumed as part of their concert ‘Across the Sea - A Celtic Journey’, bringing together baroque and trad music.
Photo credit: Jinterwas
Posthumous release of Matt Dibble's 24 Preludes and Fugues with pianist Freddy Kempf.
My dear friend Matt Dibble died in 2021, having received the AstraZeneca vaccine. In our last communication, he told me by text message that he had been working on the last of his Preludes and Fugues - a project he began in 2015 and finished just weeks before his death. With the support and blessing of Matt’s family and other friends of his, I raised the money to fund a recording by Freddy Kempf, Matt’s dream recording artist for the project. The work was recorded at our alma mater the University of York in summer 2022, and after post production in Canada, the double album was released on Divine Art Records in June 2024.
In addition, with the filmmaker Frederick Bernas, we made films of the Preludes and Fugues on B flat and F sharp, and also a documentary film, ‘Matt Dibble: The Man and His Music.’
A concert bringing together three unique Glasgow-based choirs with culturally diverse memberships which include New Scot singers and singers from other migrant backgrounds and the wider local community.
The RSNO commissioned me to arrange nine songs for ensemble and voices, three each for three community choirs around Glasgow, comprising displaced people, as part of the Scottish Refugee Festival, 2024. The Joyous Choir is a women’s voice group based in Maryhill, the Solo Way choir is made up of Ukrainian women, and the Harper African Voice Choir is based in the Harper church in Govan. The event, a performed at the RSNO Centre in Glasgow, was a great success, and well attended.
Guest supporting Musical Director for the 2024 Connections Festival at the National Theatre.
For the 2024 Connections Festival at the National Theatre, I was supporting Musical Director for the Spotlights Youth Theatre group based in Forfar, for a performance of ’The Sad Club’ in the Dorfmann Theatre. I worked alongside the inspirational group leaders Marley Laurie and Colin Grant (MD), I worked with NT Associate Director Joseph Hancock.
Composed the music for a full-length show with collaborative conceptual arts duo KINUK, as part of Symphony Nova Scotia's Pjila’si Sessions.
In the spring of 2024 I was part of a creative team that developed a full-length show offering various perspectives on the North American ‘Land Acknowledgement’, led by First-Nations conceptual arts duo, KINUK.
New Music CD Recording
Octandre Ensemble will record works spanning 50 years of composer Frank Denyer’s career, including a new commission, 5 Views of the Path. Funding comes from Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, PRS Foundation and RVW Trust, for our second release Another Timbre records, in 2022.
Singer-songwriter Chris Helme's album, World of My Own
I worked with long-time collaborator Chris Helme on the album, composing segues, arranging strings for the songs, and as a band-member (keys).
’Along came Gilchrist with her own composition, The Harpweaver, a feast of melancholic optimism propelled by her febrile dexterity, flashes of wild glissandi and, in Jon Hargreaves’ and Pippa Murphy’s orchestral arrangement, poignant moments of impressionistic reflection’
Ken Walton, The Scotsman
‘The Celtic Connections show was opened by the SCO, under conductor Eric Jacobsen, playing Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, before accompanying Maeve Gilchrist, the innovative Edinburgh-born, Brooklyn-based harpist, on The Harpweaver, from her most recent album. The luminous sound produced by the orchestra and Gilchrist’s Celtic, or lever, harp was worth the price of admission alone*.’*
Russell Leadbetter, Scotland Herald
Working with Pippa Murphy, I arranged some songs from the amazing New York harpist Maeve Gilchrist’s album ’The Harpweaver’, to be played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Celtic Connections festival.
Writing and presenting two short education films for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
In January 2024 I wrote and filmed two short educational films about the composer Viktor Ullmann and writer, dancer and activist Maya Angelou, for the RSNO’s ‘Still I Rise’ project.
I co-wrote a chapter, ’Sonorities and Spectra’, for the Cambridge Companion to Composition (Ed. Toby Young),with the composer, and my co-Director of the Octandre Ensemble, Christian Mason. The edited volume will be published by Cambridge University Press in summer 2024.
Performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Inner Space Concerts, Nova Scotia, Canada.
I am delighted to conduct Pierrot Lunaire in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for Inner Space concerts.
Film composer mentoring project.
I worked with five young film composers and their mentor, John Lunn, in orchestral workshops with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
After the success of the RSNO Film Composers’ Lab in 2022/23, I am conducting for the second year of the programme, working with five young composers studying under the tutelage of the renowned professional composers Patrick Doyle and Dana Kokogai.
String octet arrangement
Alan Leach (Shed 7) commissioned a string octet arrangement of his song ‘Clouds behind the moon’ for his first solo album, ‘I wish I knew now what I thought I knew then’.
Attanging Katherime Priddy's song for BBC Concert Orchestra
I arranged ‘The Summer has Flown’ by the singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy’s song for the BBC Concert Orchestra at the BBC Dream Prom in the Royal Albert Hall - a collaboration with Pippa Murphy.
WP of Octandre Ensemble commission
On 16th June 2022, the Octandre Ensemble with Jessica Aszodi (voice), conducted by Frank Denyer, gave the premiere of his ‘5 Views of the Path’, at the London Contemporary Music Festival. ‘5 Views…’ explores microtonality and fragile sounds, scored for voice, three baroque flutes, genggong two percussion (stones, marbles, clothboard, knock, rattles, plant pots), mandolin and violin, The commission was generously supported by the Ernst von Siemens MusikStiftung.
Chamber Orchestra score
In 2021, I scored Pippa Murphy and Karina Polwart’s song ‘Sleep Now’ for their stunning collaboration with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Seek the Light. The concert was later broadcast in full on BBC Radio 3.
Performance Installation
Octandre Ensemble played in Jack Sheen’s installation piece at Blackheath Halls, London, a collaboration with dancer Eve Stainton, and a string orchestra comprising Trinity Laban students.
3-Song EP (full orchestral arrangements)
With singer/songwriter Martha Bean, I created a 3-song EP, First Light with full orchestral arrangements, recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due for release Spring 2022 on Spotify, and YouTube.
10-track album (string arrangements)
I wrote arrangements for strings and other instruments on a number of songs on Joel Evans’ forthcoming album, The Shipwrecker’s Lantern. Recorded in 2020, the record will be released in late 2021.
Orchestral Arrangement (RnB)
For one of their Fusion Sessions, Symphony Nova Scotia commissioned a full orchestral arrangement of Keonté Beals’ song Let Go, from his 2021 album, King.
Large-scale trad album launch
Ainsley Hamill’s album Not Just Ship Land celebrates the people of Govan, with words from interviews with present-day residents. In August 2021, I directed a band and string orchestra, for her album launch at Tramway in the southside of Glasgow.
New Music CD Recording
In recording sessions for Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian’s album, I conducted and music-directed works ranging from trios to sinfonietta-sized pieces. Produced by David Lefeber, it was released on NMC Records in November 2021.
Real-time intercontinental improvisation
In the second year of the pandemic lockdown I took part in a remote, recorded improvisation project, at the invitation of the composer. Sinan Savaskan. We made the 2020 version (in 2021) of a score written in 1980. We performers each recorded 11-minute improvisations, using whatever instruments were to hand, at the strike of the final pip of the BBC World Service news on 28th May, 2021.
The recordings were collated by Savaskan, and released by NMC Records, on their ‘Big Lockdown Music Survey’ disc.
Fellow performers: Sinan Savaskan (Brighton, UK), Christian Mason (Paris, France), Graham Tattersall (Orléans, France), and Holly Mathieson (with myself, on the shores of Lake Tekapo, New Zealand - her 40th birthday)
Performance installation video recording
Octandre Ensemble’s first collaboration with composer Jack Sheen was a world-premiere video recording of his installation piece, Sub, at the Menuhin Hall, Surrey. The 50-minute piece features five alto flutes, four violas, two bass clarinets, two trombones, piano, percussion and electronics.
Online Music Projects
Nevis Ensemble undertook many activities during the pandemic. Our recording of Auld Lang Syne featured people from almost every country in the world. Our ten Lochan Sketch commissions featured weekly on BBC Radio Scotland, and Alex Ho’s Breathe and Draw, a Nevis commission, was nominated for a Scottish New Music Award.
Large-scale World Premiere performance
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
With a host of collaborators, Octandre Ensemble gave the World Premiere of Frank Denyer’s epic The Fish that Became the Sun (1991/96). Waiting nearly 30 years for its premiere, the piece has a legendary status in British new-music circles.
Orchestral tour
Nevis Ensemble’s second annual summer tour saw the orchestra take in Oban, Barra, North Uist, Harris, Lewis, Skye, and also the archipelago of St Kilda – the three most remote British Isles.
New Music Residency
A concert of works by Rolf Hind, Per Nørgård and Claude Vivier. Part of ‘Way Out East’ – three composer portrait concerts at the Coronet, Notting Hill, London. Funding for the residency came from the PRS Foundation Open Fund, Hinrichsen Foundation and RVW Trust.
New Music Residency
A concert of works by Frank Denyer, featuring the premiere of his music theatre piece, Screens (dedicated to myself and Christian Mason).
Part of ‘Way Out East’ – three composer portrait concerts at the Coronet, Notting Hill, London. Funding for the residency came from the PRS Foundation Open Fund, Hinrichsen Foundation and RVW Trust.
World Premiere recording
With a host of collaborators, Octandre Ensemble recorded Frank Denyer’s epic The Fish that Became the Sun (1991/96) at the Menuhin Hall, Surrey. The disc was released on Another Timbre records in November, 2019.
New Music Residency
A concert of works by Nicola LeFanu, David Lumsdaine and Elizabeth Maconchy,
Part of ‘Way Out East’ – three composer portrait concerts at the Coronet, Notting Hill, London. Funding for the residency came from the PRS Foundation Open Fund, Hinrichsen Foundation and RVWTrust.
Orchestral tour
In its first tour, the Nevis Ensemble played 72 times in just 10 days. Playing throughout the central belt, we took in libraries, museums, schools. art galleries and many other community venues. The tour featured a guest conducting spot from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
World Premiere Performances
It was a great privilege to work on this showcase for LSO Soundhub with three composers. The programme allows for rehearsal-workshops, enabling true collaboration between performers and composers.
New Music Festival Performance
The Octande Ensemble gave a three-part concert at the Principal Sound Festival, at St. John’s, Smith Square, London. The concert included many UK Premieres, including Christian Mason’s Layers of Love, Claude Vivier’s Samarkand, and Savaskan’s Green Plastic Vase.
Live film score production
In late 2015 I created a score for live performance of Bernard Herrmann’s score for the Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver. I am grateful to the Southbank Centre for this chance to get a close-up view of this iconic film score.
Real-time telematic performance
Under Prof. Michael Rofe, teams of technologists, composers and performers worked together, developing three real-time networked pieces of music. The final performance was held in July 2015 with a string orchestra and choir in Truro cathedral, a flute choir on the Isles of Scilly, a brass band at Lizard Point, and myself conducting from the Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, at the University of Falmouth.
Composer-curator collaboration project
For Curiouser, Octandre Ensemble’s second collaboration with New Dots, we invited three composers to create 20-minute sets of music written by themselves and/or others. We held workshops at The Asylum, Peckham inSeptember, and a final performance in November. All three composers wrote original pieces for the occasion, one even commissioned a fourth composer. Other composers featured were Harrison Birtwistle, Christopher Fox, Ben Graves, Kaija Saariaho, Maurice Ravel (arr. Illean) and Peter Wiegold.
Composer Portrait Concert
The Octandre Ensemble performed an epic, 3-part concert of works by our Composer-in-Residence, Sinan Savaskan. We commissioned Many Stares in Semi-Nocturnal Zeiss Blink: Module 30, which later won the BASCA National Composers Award for Large-Scale Chamber Ensemble, in 2015.
Live film score production
With Holly Mathieson, I created the live performance materials for this iconic film, featuring, almost exclusively, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.
Singer-songwriter collaboration
I scored strings for four songs on Andy Ruddy’s debut album, Everything is in Order, and directed a recording session in Willingham, Cambridgeshire.
Singer-songwriter collaboration
I scored strings for a number of songs on singer, songwriter and producer Sam Forrest’s remarkable album.
New Music Weekend
In association with LSO Soundhub, The Octandre Ensemble hosted a weekend of discussion, workshops and performances at LSO St. Luke’s, exploring works by composers based in the UK and France. Generous support came from Diaphonique, the Holst Foundation and private donors.
New Music Concert
The Octandre Ensemble played a concert featuring chamber works by our Patron, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, standing in relation to medieval music. These were offset by pieces by Co-Artistic Director ChristianMason and Igor Stravinsky. The event hosted a medieval bar serving traditional ale and mead, and the medieval fancy dress was judged by Sir Harrison himself!
Octandre Ensemble Debut Concert
The Octandre Ensemble’s debut concert, in the stunning Chapel at King’s College,London, featured music by Varèse, Saariaho, Scelsi, and the world premiere of Anthedonia, by Composer-in-Residence, Sinan Savaskan.
Singer-songwriter collaboration
I scored strings for five songs on singer-songwriter Hayley Hutchinson’s album, Hawks to the Wind.
Chris Helme’s second solo album was mostly recorded in The Rookery, a large house in the Yorkshire Dales. Strings were recorded afterwards in London at Kensal Green Cemetery.
The Yards played together from 2002-9, touring the UK, releasing two studio albums, one live album, and various singles, with live radio appearances on BBC Radio 2, 6 and various local stations.
The Yards played together from 2002-9, touring the UK, releasing two studio albums, one live album, and various singles, with live radio appearances on BBC Radio 2, 6 and various local stations.
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Jon works across musical genres as a composer, arranger and conductor, from his base in Scotland.
His professional portfolio over the last 10 years encompasses artistic directorships; conducting new music, as well as standard orchestral repertoire and opera; composing/arranging for orchestras, singer-songwriters and other artists; and executive production for recording projects.
He co-founded the Octandre Ensemble with the composer Christian Mason in 2011. He has conducted and led the Ensemble in festival appearances in London and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, leading to appearances on BBC Radio 3, and CD releases on Another Timbre and SN Variations. He was founding Co-Artistic Director of Glasgow's Nevis Ensemble until 2022, conducting over 200 performances in settings ranging from schools and prisons to museums, art galleries and concert halls, as well as on top of Ben Nevis and on the remote isles of St Kilda. Since 2023, he conducts the Film Composers Lab at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO).
Jon has a long-term and deep-rooted interest in musical value and meaning. He has published music analytic work, as well as collaborations in the social psychology of music, music education and embodied music cognition. Jon teaches at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
“Denyer’s hour-long masterpiece … had a gripping flow that was sometimes thunderously aggressive, … sometimes beguiling and often disturbing.”