Gwilym Simcock Trio

Sunday 28 February, 7.30 pm
Queen’s Hall, Queen’s College, Taunton

Gwilym Simcock Trio
Gwilym Simcock piano
Yuri Goloubev double bass
James Maddren percussion

28-year-old Gwilym Simcock is one of the most gifted pianists and imaginative composers on the British scene. Able to move effortlessly between jazz and classical music, he can, at times, inhabit both worlds and has been described as stylistically reminiscent of Keith Jarrett as well as a pianist of ‘exceptional’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘dazzling’ ability. His music has been widely acclaimed as ‘engaging, exciting, often unexpected, melodically enthralling, complex and wonderfully optimistic’.  Winner of the Perrier Award, BBC Jazz Awards 2005 and British Jazz Awards 2005, Gwilym was the first BBC Radio 3 New Generation Jazz Artist. He was voted Jazz Musician of the Year at the 2007 Parliamentary Jazz Awards and nominated for the 2008 BBC Jazz Awards as Best Instrumentalist.  As a member of Acoustic Triangle, Gwilym first performed at Cossington Concerts in 2006.

Bass player Yuri Goloubev performed with the Bolshoi Opera and from 1992 till 2004 was Principal Bass with the Moscow Soloists, directed by Yuri Bashmet.  In 2002 he was made an Honoured Artist of Russia by President Putin.  Two years later Yuri changed direction, deciding to make his career in jazz and his home in Italy.  In 2007 he joined the jazz faculty of Centro Professione Musica (CPM) in Milan.

Drummer James Maddren attended Christ's Hospital School (Horsham, Sussex) and is now a studying jazz percussion at the Royal Academy of Music.

Listen to samples from the new album - Blues Vignette - out now

Blues Vignette
Black Coffee
Longing To Be

“Just when you thought the piano could go no further in jazz one emerges to raise the bar of invention and virtuosity still higher. On this recording Gwilym Simcock seems to have breached a dam of inhibition and let loose a flood of music that is truly exhilarating”. Helen Mayhew, Jazz FM.