Guildhall Improvisers' Workshop
- 7.30pm
Tickets
About this event:
- Category:
- Jazz
- Event type:
- Booking required | In-person
- Admission:
- Tickets: £15 (£8 concessions)
- Location:
- Milton Court Concert Hall
Event information
The ‘Improvisers’ Workshop’ is a Guildhall School group focusing on creative jazz improvisation, approaching the jazz ensemble as a malleable vehicle for contemporary composition.
This performance, directed by saxophonist and composer Trish Clowes and singer and composer Clare Wheeler, will feature original compositions by and for the group.
We are delighted to welcome one of the leading exponents of a generation of tap dancers, Annette Walker, to feature as special guest.
The programme includes Clowes’ own vocal music, a piece by pianist-composer Nikki Iles, Awakening, which was commissioned by Clowes in 2018, and a rendition of the haunting folk melody The Month of January.
This concert is a continuation of two previous collaborations: between Clowes and Wheeler in 2024 for a concert at Wigmore Hall, and between Clowes and Walker in 2023 for a concert at Guildhall School with students from the Jazz course.
Join us to absorb this exploration of sound, colour and texture.
Performers
Annette Walker MA BSc (Hons) DipHE is one of the leading exponents of a generation of tap dancers taking the stage with grace, style, and above all, rhythm. She is a dynamic and multi-skilled performer and has appeared in a variety of shows, from theatre, circus and dance, to the concert stage, television and film. Annette is an alumni Trailblazer Fellow of Dance of the African Diaspora (One Dance UK), a freelance writer, researcher and consultant, and was the specialist in tap dance for the Royal Academy of Dance’s pilot project of Dance for Lifelong Wellbeing. She teaches both music and dance and regularly leads the Renegade Stage, an improvisation workshop for tap dancers, at the London Tap Jam.
Annette’s research area of interest is the past and present relationship between jazz dance and music, improvisation, and the development of tap dance in the UK in relation to its historic American roots. She is one of the co-directors and steering committee members of the Tap Dance Research Network UK (TDRN UK) that formed in 2019 and is currently a PhD in Performing Arts scholarship student.
In 2019 Annette featured as a tap soloist in the BBC Proms Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music concert at the world famous Royal Albert Hall in London, UK.
As an aerial acrobat she was one of the Mary Poppins in the London 2012 Opening Ceremony.
Annette regularly collaborates with other artists and is currently working with artistic director and award-winning jazz bassist, Gary Crosby OBE, of Tomorrow’s Warriors.
Venue information
Milton Court, based across the road from our Silk Street building, provides the School with world-class performance and training spaces, including a state of the art concert hall, a lyric theatre, a studio theatre and several major rehearsal rooms.
- Milton Court, 1 Milton Street, London, EC2Y 9BH
