The Gallery Sessions - Tim Whitehead Quartet

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Colour Beginnings

Tim Whitehead, saxes
Liam Noble, piano
Pat Bettison, bass guitar
tbc, drums

One of Britain’s foremost inventive performer and composer, Tim was artist-in-residence at Tate Britain for nearly a year, and premiered there in November 2009 a series of musical works written in response to an exhibition of Turner's amazing colour sketches. Tonight’s performance will include projected images of the paintings.

The Tate residency allowed Tim to explore the links between Turner's artistic methods and musical improvisation. Turner commonly plotted his composition and colour harmonies before embarking on the finished design and it was this idea of Colour Beginnings that has inspired tonight’s music, reacting to Turner's mastery of light, the way it falls on objects and the life it gives to compositions.

With a watercolour, or with a jazz solo, there is simply no turning back, whether it's from the first touch of brush on paper, or from the first agitation of the air with sound.

‘Tim Whitehead is one of the finest contemporary British saxists, at least the equal of better-known players like Andy Sheppard and Courtney Pine’. Andy Hamilton - Jazz on CD

Minimum age recommendation: 14