Musical direction and arranging

I regularly work both as a musical director and arranger for music, theatre and TV.

This often crosses over with my composition and production work, as it did when I arranged, recorded and produced the brass and drum parts for this National Lottery advert celebrating its 25th anniversary.

I have arranged, directed and performed music for artists including Billy Bragg, Sam Smith (the singer bloke, not the bloke who runs the chain of cheap and cheerful pubs in London), Roni Size, Scroobius Pip, Jim Bob, Sophie Ellis Bextor and many more. 

In 2019 and 2021 I was Orchestrator and Musical Director for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Robin Ince and Brian Cox

For many years I was Musical Director (and often composer) for Robin Ince and Brian Cox’s live shows, including countless shows at the Hammersmith Apollo with guests including The Cure, Eric Idle, Chris Hadfield and countless others, who I both arranged music for and performed with. I was also MD/composer for Space Shambles at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018.

I also once performed my arrangement of Eric Idle's amazing tune 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life' with Eric and a ridiculous cast of backing singers on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo. That was quite a treat. I even got the arrangement signed, and I never get anything signed.

And here’s me and my band performing my arrangement of David Bowie’s Space Oddity with astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018.

Other stuff

As well as lots of arranging (often to commission) with HCB and associated projects (including commissions by Sky Arts, BBC 4, the Imperial War Museum and the London 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony), I also arrange for the Bollywood Brass Band, particularly for their '100 Years of Bollywood Music' tour in 2013-15.

I was musical director and co-arranger of the music for Puffball at the Roundhouse in 2014, which was fun and used a lot of interesting electronic textures.

Later in 2014 I composed and produced the music and sound design for The Santa Claus Science Experiment, a musical theatre piece combining comedy, science, animation and more which ran at the Bloomsbury Theatre from 2013-14. It was my first foray into writing for musical theatre and I loved it. I will put some tracks online at some stage if anyone's interested.

I've done other bits including composition and sound design for First Impressions at Theatre Royal Margate back in 2010. For this show I went to Margate to sample local sounds and worked them into some incidental music which combined elements of the Margate of the 1840s with the Margate of 2010. It was fun.

I was Musical Supervisor for On Mass at the Roundhouse in November 2017 and 2015, featuring Angelique Kidjo in 2017, and Jamie Cullum and Tim Exile in 2015. Both instalments had musicians from around the world taking part, with 250 musicians from the UK, Faroe Islands, Brazil and India in 2017, and 150 musicians from the UK, Ukraine, Nigeria and South Africa in 2015,

In 2014 I was Musical Director for Puffball at the Roundhouse and on tour.

Here is the complete live stream of On Mass from November 2017 and 2017. There were some properly memorable moments both times, and if you look closely, you might be able to see me running around trying to co-ordinate everything.