Piano Day 2021 (Livestream)

BPS - Piano Day 2021

After a years' hiatus, Brudenell Piano Sessions return in livestream form to mark Piano Day 2021 with a celebration of piano-based music being written, produced, improvised and performed here in Leeds. Piano Day continues to inspire and reach new audiences with each passing year. 

“Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” – Nils Frahm

Piano Day, an annual worldwide event founded by a group of likeminded people, takes place on the 88th day of the year – in 2021 it’s the 29th March – because of the number of keys on the instrument being celebrated. The aim of the day is to create a platform for piano related projects in order to promote the development of musical dimensions and to continue sharing the centuries-old joy of playing piano. Piano Day welcomes all kinds of piano lovers — young and old, amateur and professional, of any musical direction – to join in. It is intended to be the most joyful of all holidays!”

To mark the occasion this year, we’ll feature performances from singer-songwriter Josephine Sillars and producer & improviser Jake Mehew, with an introductory set from host & curator Simeon Walker. In the absence of live shows where we can gather together - which we look forward to resuming soon - we hope you’ll join us to celebrate some of the music being created for the piano here in Leeds, and with friends around the world for Piano Day. 

Josephine Sillars:

Originally from the Highlands of Scotland but now based in Leeds, Josephine Sillars is a musician and songwriter about to release some of her most potent work to date. Having previously released under The Manic Pixie Dreams moniker, she's dropping the alter egos, getting personal and political with the release of the Desperate Characters EP, which is due for release March 26th 2021.

Sillars has received support from BBC Introducing, where her single "Enemy" was made Track of the Week on BBC Introducing in West Yorkshire in January 2021, as well as having previous support from BBC Radio Scotland where she was described as "protest pop", with her single "Skeleton" being made Track of the Week following its release in 2019. 

Jake Mehew:

Jake Mehew is a 27 year old producer, performer, improviser, DJ, radio presenter and educator from Nottingham, currently based in Leeds. For the past five years, Jake has been exploring the relationship between jazz philosophy and beat music, searching for ways to liberate performance from its often linear and sequenced direction. His music is concerned with self-expression, radical invention and developing open-ended works as a springboard for departure.

In August 2020, Jake began to record his debut LP, during his awarded residency on the Sage Gateshead Summer Artist project. In the space of 80 hours, Jake spent his residency documenting his practise of freedom within collaborative music. The residency brought together Leeds based improvisers (NikNak, Joel Stedman,  Joe Love, Jay Taylor and Chris Duffin) to create a bespoke recording which reflected the interpersonal relationships developed in the six days of writing and recording. The record, appropriately named the Sage LP, aimed to capture the transient moments in improvisation that are usually lost to time, and served as an opportunity to develop new methodologies of work.

As leader for hip hop outfit Space Dolphin, Jake has been busy recording their debut LP More Than Soul, featuring the likes of Harleighblu, Fold, Motormouf, Franky Bones, Ty Healy, Jermaine Peterson, NikNak, Motormouf and Phenicia Williams. Prior to More Than Soul, Space Dolphin had written, produced and released the AA single Wet Paint and Smoking Kills in February 2020, coinciding with a two date tour in Nottingham and Leeds with artists Lydian Collective, Franky Bones and Motormouf. Additional dates for an extended tour were cancelled due to Covid-19. This release was supported by Emily Pilbeam’s BBC Introducing West Yorkshire show.

Jake’s music has taken him to play festivals including Giles Peterson’s inaugural We Out Here festival, Dot to Dot Festival and play the headline stage at Eden Festival. In the past Jake has also organised grassroots events with aims of empowering Leeds’ hip hop audiences and facilitating participatory agency within the paradigm of performance.

Jake is also a creative collaborator with artist Tom Williams. Since 2017, Jake has collaborated on two released LP’s All Change, and What Did You Want To Be. Jake is currently recording Tom’s third record at Tim Rice-Oxley’s (Keane, Mt Desolation) Seafog Studios. In 2017, All Change was included on the BBC Radio 6 10 Best Albums of the Year list. His work with Tom Williams has facilitated two successful international touring campaigns. Jake has also performed live on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 6 with Lauren Laverne and Jo Whiley.

Jake collaborates regularly with Leeds jazz giants Ancient Infinity Orchestra. In March 2020, Jake collaborated on AIO’s recent monolithic release Cosmosaic - Moments in Time; a two-hour epic. ‘Moments in Time’ is the second album of the ‘Cosmosaic’ series by Ancient Infinity Orchestra. The compositions paint a timeline through our planet’s history. Starting from the beginning of the universe, then to the gradual forming of stars and planets, the balance of elements and greenhouse gases, streams, rivers, plants, creatures large and small, all the way through to the emergence of human beings and the sudden, more rapid transformations of our planet. Each track represents just a few pivotal points in our Earth’s story, as we begin to look outward, back into the universe that created us and wonder its many mysteries.

Having graduated Leeds Conservatoire with an MMus in composition and improvisational performance, Jake has studied with many notable artists including the pianist Matthew Bourne, the drummer for Portishead and Radiohead Clive Deamer, and worked with producers such as Ken Scott (of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory) and Benedic Lamdin (Nostalgia 77). His BA undergraduate dissertation was concerned with experimental and microtonal tuning systems; Jake explored alternative ways to create harmony outside of western standardised 12-TET tuning. Utilising computer software to realise harmonic timbres which are not constrained to certain principles of acoustic physics, Jake managed to make music using the harmonic series and various equal temperaments of the octave and compound intervals. Jake’s Masters in Creative Musicianship was a practise as research project, in which he analysed and codified his creative approach in composition. Jake’s MMus research was invested in the many positive psychological and somatic effects of improvisation (notably the state of ‘flow’), the social power of group improvisation as music therapy and he undertook an evaluation of the current state of government music education policy, analysing why policy has made music inaccessible to the most vulnerable children in society. Jake is currently in the process of applying for a PhD in Music to specialise in improvisatory performance. 

Jake is also an educator, providing music education across Leeds. Jake teaches lessons in piano, saxophone, music theory, music production, composition and improvisation. Jake currently works for Leeds City Council and their Artsmark contractor Artforms, Leeds Cathedral and Leeds Music Academy. Jake also conducts lessons from his music studio when he’s not writing or recording. He considers himself a permanent student, always searching, researching and trying to better himself and those he can help along the way.

Simeon Walker:

Leeds-based pianist & composer Simeon Walker has quickly emerged as a leading light in the burgeoning Modern Classical scene, following the release of Mono and Winnow, his two full-length albums to date.

Touring regularly across the UK and Europe, with notable performances at Latitude Festival (UK), Q3Ambientfest (DE) MicroPop Week (DE) & FAN Festival (PT), he has supported S. Carey, Sebastian Plano, Loscil, Marconi Union, Erland Cooper & Taz Modi, with his music receiving substantial radio airplay across BBC Radio 3, 6Music, KEXP & NeoFM and over 10 million streams from a worldwide audience.

His recently released second album Winnow received funding support from Help Musicians UK & PRS Foundation, and represents a clear and growing confidence in his work and practice.

With live performance a crucial aspect in his development as an artist, Walker founded and continues to curate Brudenell Piano Sessions, a regular live music event celebrating music created on the piano, held at Brudenell Social Club. This aims to provide an outlet for artists across a wide range of genres to present their work to an appreciative and supportive audience, at one of the UK’s most iconic music venues.

With a consistently growing loyal audience, Walker’s calm, introspective piano instrumentals invite the listener to find stillness and beauty as much in the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves, as musical stories are woven with each tender, intimate performance.