Moment Of Departure Tim Garland

• 1Winds Of Hope05:12
• 2Trails07:05
• 3No Horizon07:47
• 4The Impossible Self03:32
• 5Sub Vita09:32
• 6Moment Of Departure07:22
• 7Moment Of Arrival01:30
• 8Approaching Winter11:14
• 9The Forever Seed Part I - Fruit05:00
• 10The Forever Seed Part II - Made Beautiful06:57
• 11The Forever Seed Part III - Harbinger06:08
• 12The Forever Seed Part IV - Nascency07:21
• 13The Forever Seed Part V - Praise08:24
• Total Runtime01:27:04

Info for Moment Of Departure

This is the most ambitious project of Tim Garland's stellar career, with a celebration of Lighthouse Trio's 20th Anniversary (Gwilym Simcock and Asaf Sirkis), along with a stunning display of Tim's prowess as a composer and arranger with the Britten Sinfonia, featuring violinist Thomas Gould, along with trumpet ace Yazz Ahmed performing as a special guest on one track. Tim describes the project: "That Moment of Departure, from the known, the notated, towards something new is a shout of fearless freedom. The compositions on this album all have crucial and varied relationships with improvised music, from string orchestra to intimate trio, and completely free-form music. Classical influences and visual art have informed me, as much as my jazz heart. The series of paintings called 'Sail To Hope', by Esra Kizir Gokcen, provide a backbone of inspiration for the first disc's music. The subject of journeying into the unknown, as well as the influence of Turkish rhythms, create the background atmosphere whilst maintaining the spaciousness and freedom for the jazz soloists."

Since the very dawn of the music over a century ago, there’s always been a balance in jazz between composition and improvisation. This equilibrium has been a constant source of inspiration and experiment for Tim Garland. Several of his ensembles have explored that relationship, but Moment of Departure charts the latest stage in the twenty-year journey of the group that has most consistently done so, the Lighthouse Trio. Named after the Lighthouse in Whitley Bay, near Newcastle University where Garland was a Fellow in Composition, the building’s resonant acoustic offered a soundscape ripe for exploration. Themes taken from Garland’s solo improvisations in the building were woven into his composition ‘If The Sea Replied’, (a collaboration with the Northern Sinfonia). The sixth track here, ‘Moment of Departure’, shows us the very latest stage of that process, because both on the record and in an accompanying video, the trio’s actual improvisations are woven into the fabric of the piece, played with the Britten Sinfonia.

Garland’s historical journey continued with 2013’s Songs To The North Sky, and reviewing its premiere in Gateshead, what stood out for me was “some truly tour-de-force playing by Garland himself, at times so quicksilver dazzling that it seemed well-nigh impossible to play.” He’s set himself a similar challenge here, on ‘The Impossible Self’, ably paced by Gwilym Simcock’s more than nimble piano. Over its life, the Trio has made a feature of collaboration, and its guest here on ‘Sub Vita’ is trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, who perfectly chimes with the other three players to create a moody, at times sombre, landscape. And this landscape is just one aspect of the album’s underlying motif of travel and journeys, inspired by the artwork of Turkish artist Esra Kizir Gokcen in a series of paintings called Sail To Hope, and represented visually by the cover image. It is also apparent in the rhythmic texture of ‘No Horizon’, which draws on Turkish rhythms, particularly teased out in Asaf Sirkis’s small but effective percussion kit.

The second group of tracks contains a different balance between improvisation and composition. While the first seven pieces took improvisation as starting points, each of this set explores what the Harvard Dictionary of Music describes as the “supplementation and variation of written compositions”. Extended improvisation by soloists was part of the language of Baroque music, and there’s an explicit link here with that era in ‘Approaching Winter’, using thematic ideas from the Winter section of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This features the strings of the Britten Sinfonia, the Lighthouse Trio and violin soloist Thomas Gould. But then the compositional practice comes full circle, with Tim’s suite ‘The Forever Seed’. He doesn’t play on this but conducts the London Session Orchestra strings (plus harp and cimbalom) for what is in effect a concerto for Thomas Gould. There are nods to Vivaldi again, but only as a “Moment of Departure”. (Alyn Shipton)

Tim Garland, conductor, soprano & tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Gwilym Simcock, piano
Asaf Sirkis, drums & percussion
Thomas Gould, violin soloist
Yazz Ahmed, flugelhorn (on Sub Vita)
The Strings of The London Studio Orchestra (on The Forever Seed)
John Mills, leader (on The Forever Seed)
Rob Millett, cimbalom (on The Forever Seed)

Tim Garland
was born in 1966, studied composition at the Guildhall School under Robert Saxton and changed first study to saxophone half way through his course.

He has won a series of BBC awards for band leading and composition between 1989 and 2006.

In 2008 he won a Grammy for his orchestrations of Chick Corea's music on "The New Crystal Silence" and continues to be Chick's saxophone player touring the jazz scene internationally.

He was Research Fellow at Newcastle University between 2004 and 2008 and has been a visiting proffessor at the Royal Academy Of Music for over a decade.

Garlands ensembles have often consisted of innovative line-ups, he has been the inspiration between "Acoustic Triangle", "Storms'Nocturnes" "The Underground Orchestra" and his continuing project "Lighthouse" which was formed in 2004.

He is married with two children and shares his time between London and the North East of England.

Tim is one of the most versatile musicians in the UK. He won a Grammy for his orchestrations of the Chick Corea CD "The New Crystal Silence", which he helped produce at the Sydney Opera House, and is accepting commissions as composer and arranger from several of the worlds leading orchestras.

He has won several BBC awards for his small ensemble projects and delights in fusing together differing musical disciplines. Particularly familiar with the worlds of contemporary orchestral and jazz music, Tim is also adept in creating music in the studio using electronic and pre-recorded material.

His skills extend to writing lyrics, many of which are evident on this site, and he has formed lasting relationships with several internationally renowned musicians, often working onstage alongside them.

Tim is a founder shareholder with Audio Network and has written for the RPO, the LSO, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, Westminster Abbey Choir and many other ensembles that are drawn to his eclectic vision. He likes to refer to his wide-ranging output as a ‘Diverse Unity’.

This album contains no booklet.