Biography
Trish Clowes works in London as a saxophonist, composer, and educator. She combines spontaneous invention with a bold stance toward contemporary writing that moves between post-bop and classical idioms. Her approach to the saxophone investigates every timbral and multiphonic possibility the instrument can yield. A transparent, resonant, and open tone supports both delicate melodic statements and dense, sometimes forceful harmonic layers. Her first recording for the independent Basho imprint, the 2010 album Tangent, introduced nine original pieces scored for jazz quartet and chamber players and launched an enduring relationship with the label. The 2012 follow-up And in the Night-Time She Is There earned her a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist appointment and prompted the creation of the Emulsion Festival. Pocket Compass, released in 2014, placed a quintet alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra and marked her commercial breakthrough. The 2016 release My Iris, widely praised for its playful imagination, also supplied the name for her working quartet. She continued that exploratory direction with Ninety Degrees Gravity in 2019 before moving to Dave Douglas’s Greenleaf Music imprint for the 2022 album A View with a Room.
Born in the 1980s and raised in Shrewsbury, Clowes began piano and clarinet lessons in primary school and took up tenor and soprano saxophones during secondary education. She relocated to London in 2003 for studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Her listening spans Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Joe Lovano, and Wayne Shorter; her teachers were saxophonist Iain Ballamy and composer Hans Koller. While completing a master’s degree in composition she performed in both jazz clubs and classical venues, then assembled the quintet Tangent and recorded its self-titled debut for Basho. The personnel included drummer James Maddren and guitarist Chris Montague, both later members of My Iris, together with pianist Gwilym Simcock. Reviewers singled out the album for its compositional craft and for placing the post-bop ensemble in dialogue with classical chamber musicians drawn from strings, brass, and reeds.
After the positive reception of that debut and its accompanying tour, Jamie Cullum, Gilles Peterson, and Jez Nelson invited Clowes to appear on the BBC Introducing stage at the 2011 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, an event later aired on BBC Radio 3. Tangent also performed in the Proms Plus Late series at the Royal Albert Hall. The 2012 album And in the Night-Time She Is There again featured her quartet—Simcock guesting on four tracks—augmented by a chamber string quintet. Further critical notice followed appearances at the London Jazz Festival, where she interpreted the music of Barbara Thompson, and on BBC Radio 3’s Jazz on 3 at Ronnie Scott’s and Jazz Line Up at the Royal Festival Hall.
Between 2012 and 2014 she held the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist position. A 2013 trip to California brought a meeting with Wayne Shorter that shaped both her writing and her playing. A commission from the network to compose for the BBC Concert Orchestra received a British Composer Award in 2015. That same year she launched and directed the Emulsion Festival, supported by grant funding, with the aim of examining collective music-making and audience engagement; Ballamy appeared as the initial featured guest. Pocket Compass, recorded with Simcock now a permanent member of the quintet, reached an international audience upon its 2014 release. Its premiere at the EFG London Jazz Festival coincided with the first performance of her BBC commission “The Fox, The Parakeet & The Chestnut,” the project that concluded her New Generation Artist tenure. The same piece earned the Contemporary Jazz Composition prize at the 2015 British Composer Awards. European and American critics responded favorably, and she made her debut at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama while touring throughout England and Europe. In August 2015 she made her first television appearance on BBC 2’s BBC Proms Extra, performing her own “Little Tune.” She also formed a trio with pianist and organist Ross Stanley and guitarist Montague and joined the song-oriented group Under Your Wing alongside Norma Winstone and Mike Walker.
My Iris, issued in 2016, introduced a new quartet in which Stanley replaced Simcock on piano and organ while Maddren and Montague remained. The title invokes the Greek goddess of the rainbow. The recording’s intricate blend of post-bop, intricate jazz-funk reminiscent of early Weather Report, and light-hearted melodies drew global acclaim for its nimble harmonic invention and concise thematic focus that emphasized collective improvisation. The ensemble toured internationally and appeared on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Bremen broadcasts.
Its successor, Ninety Degrees Gravity, arrived in 2019. The opening track “Eric’s Tune” pays tribute to former Weather Report drummer Eric Kamau Gravatt, and the album traverses swinging melodic and modal post-bop alongside dense progressive and avant-garde jazz. Clowes issued “Abbot & Costello” as both a single and a video directed by filmmaker Rose Hendry; the piece and its visual component draw from characters in Denis Villeneuve’s film Arrival. The video screened at the Cannes Lions Festival and was shortlisted for The Voice of a Woman Awards in 2019.
Clowes received a doctorate in Musical Composition from Birmingham City University (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) in 2020. In April of that year she self-released My Iris Live, drawn from concerts for Moving on Music in Belfast and at the Galway Jazz Festival. Later that autumn the live collaboration Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii, recorded with composer and educator Joe Cutler and the BBC Radio Orchestra under Ben Palmer, became available on streaming platforms. During the pandemic she began developing new material for livestream performances and composed fresh pieces for each engagement. She subsequently signed with Greenleaf Music and released A View with a Room with My Iris in April 2022. Several tracks address conditions created or intensified by the global health crisis. Three others honor women who have influenced her: “Amber” is dedicated to Amber Bauer, CEO of Donate4Refugees, an organization for which Clowes serves as ambassador; “Ayana” celebrates writer, marine biologist, and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson; and “The Ness” responds to imagery and sound captured by Hendry along Scotland’s East Neuk of Fife coastline. When not performing or recording, Clowes maintains a teaching schedule at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Born in the 1980s and raised in Shrewsbury, Clowes began piano and clarinet lessons in primary school and took up tenor and soprano saxophones during secondary education. She relocated to London in 2003 for studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Her listening spans Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Joe Lovano, and Wayne Shorter; her teachers were saxophonist Iain Ballamy and composer Hans Koller. While completing a master’s degree in composition she performed in both jazz clubs and classical venues, then assembled the quintet Tangent and recorded its self-titled debut for Basho. The personnel included drummer James Maddren and guitarist Chris Montague, both later members of My Iris, together with pianist Gwilym Simcock. Reviewers singled out the album for its compositional craft and for placing the post-bop ensemble in dialogue with classical chamber musicians drawn from strings, brass, and reeds.
After the positive reception of that debut and its accompanying tour, Jamie Cullum, Gilles Peterson, and Jez Nelson invited Clowes to appear on the BBC Introducing stage at the 2011 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, an event later aired on BBC Radio 3. Tangent also performed in the Proms Plus Late series at the Royal Albert Hall. The 2012 album And in the Night-Time She Is There again featured her quartet—Simcock guesting on four tracks—augmented by a chamber string quintet. Further critical notice followed appearances at the London Jazz Festival, where she interpreted the music of Barbara Thompson, and on BBC Radio 3’s Jazz on 3 at Ronnie Scott’s and Jazz Line Up at the Royal Festival Hall.
Between 2012 and 2014 she held the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist position. A 2013 trip to California brought a meeting with Wayne Shorter that shaped both her writing and her playing. A commission from the network to compose for the BBC Concert Orchestra received a British Composer Award in 2015. That same year she launched and directed the Emulsion Festival, supported by grant funding, with the aim of examining collective music-making and audience engagement; Ballamy appeared as the initial featured guest. Pocket Compass, recorded with Simcock now a permanent member of the quintet, reached an international audience upon its 2014 release. Its premiere at the EFG London Jazz Festival coincided with the first performance of her BBC commission “The Fox, The Parakeet & The Chestnut,” the project that concluded her New Generation Artist tenure. The same piece earned the Contemporary Jazz Composition prize at the 2015 British Composer Awards. European and American critics responded favorably, and she made her debut at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama while touring throughout England and Europe. In August 2015 she made her first television appearance on BBC 2’s BBC Proms Extra, performing her own “Little Tune.” She also formed a trio with pianist and organist Ross Stanley and guitarist Montague and joined the song-oriented group Under Your Wing alongside Norma Winstone and Mike Walker.
My Iris, issued in 2016, introduced a new quartet in which Stanley replaced Simcock on piano and organ while Maddren and Montague remained. The title invokes the Greek goddess of the rainbow. The recording’s intricate blend of post-bop, intricate jazz-funk reminiscent of early Weather Report, and light-hearted melodies drew global acclaim for its nimble harmonic invention and concise thematic focus that emphasized collective improvisation. The ensemble toured internationally and appeared on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Bremen broadcasts.
Its successor, Ninety Degrees Gravity, arrived in 2019. The opening track “Eric’s Tune” pays tribute to former Weather Report drummer Eric Kamau Gravatt, and the album traverses swinging melodic and modal post-bop alongside dense progressive and avant-garde jazz. Clowes issued “Abbot & Costello” as both a single and a video directed by filmmaker Rose Hendry; the piece and its visual component draw from characters in Denis Villeneuve’s film Arrival. The video screened at the Cannes Lions Festival and was shortlisted for The Voice of a Woman Awards in 2019.
Clowes received a doctorate in Musical Composition from Birmingham City University (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) in 2020. In April of that year she self-released My Iris Live, drawn from concerts for Moving on Music in Belfast and at the Galway Jazz Festival. Later that autumn the live collaboration Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii, recorded with composer and educator Joe Cutler and the BBC Radio Orchestra under Ben Palmer, became available on streaming platforms. During the pandemic she began developing new material for livestream performances and composed fresh pieces for each engagement. She subsequently signed with Greenleaf Music and released A View with a Room with My Iris in April 2022. Several tracks address conditions created or intensified by the global health crisis. Three others honor women who have influenced her: “Amber” is dedicated to Amber Bauer, CEO of Donate4Refugees, an organization for which Clowes serves as ambassador; “Ayana” celebrates writer, marine biologist, and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson; and “The Ness” responds to imagery and sound captured by Hendry along Scotland’s East Neuk of Fife coastline. When not performing or recording, Clowes maintains a teaching schedule at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Albums
Journey to Where
2024
A View with a Room
2022
Ninety Degrees Gravity
2019
My Iris
2017
Pocket Compass
2014
And In The Night-Time She Is There
2012
Tangent
2010
Singles
