Phil Durrant

Biography

Phil Durrant is an experimental music composer/sound designer and a performer on laptop and violin. He studied violin and piano at the London College of Music and Sonic Arts at postgraduate level at the University of East London.

As a performer on laptop and violin, Phil has worked with a number of leading ‘free improvising musicians’ all over Europe as well as USA and Canada, on music festivals and concert tours. His work with John Russell and Butcher is widely regarded as a pivotal in the creation of the ‘group voice approach’ style of collective group improvisation. He currently performs with the international electronic chamber orchestra, MIMIEO and his own group, Trio Sowari. Phil has had over 60 albums released featuring group and solo improvisations.

As a digital music composer, Phil was part of the UK House Music and Breakbeat scene in the 1990s and worked with innovators, Fabio and Grooverider and Shut Up And Dance. Since then, Phil has explored a more experimental style of composition and has worked with a number of leading Contemporary Dance choreographers including Gill Clarke and Susanne Thomas. This work is often site-specific and venues have included Tate St Ives, The Royal Opera House, and the South Bank Centre, amongst others.

Much of Phil’s sound design is created with his own virtual instruments and effects built with Reaktor software. In addition, he is recognized as an expert on Maschine and Komplete 10 and often works as a freelancer for Native Instruments.

Current research is centred on the creation of hardware/software ‘assemblages’, where the performer has immediate, second by second control over software synths/samplers and effects and is able react to the twists and turns of a live improvised performance. Phil is building patches on Lemur and MIDI Designer Pro on an iPad and combining these with hardware controllers to manipulate parameters on Reaktor and also Ableton Live.