Olivia Moore

Olivia Moore is one of the UK’s most innov­at­ive and cre­at­ive viol­in­ists. She works across a broad spec­trum of genres, ded­ic­at­ing her­self primar­ily to jazz and clas­sical Indian music, while also draw­ing influ­ence from other sources such as fla­menco, gypsy and folk.

Back­ground

After giving her first per­form­ance at the age of four, she spent her child­hood and teen years mas­ter­ing clas­sical music before going on to explore the art of impro­visa­tion. She gradu­ated from the Royal North­ern Col­lege of Music in 1999; B.Mus (Hons) in Aca­demic Stud­ies (2.1). How­ever, at 21, inspired by a jazz summer school at the Guild­hall School of music, she dis­covered the art of impro­visa­tion. This pro­pelled her into a post­gradu­ate dip­loma at Leeds Col­lege of Music (Dis­tinc­tion in 2002). At Leeds, her curi­os­ity drew her to many dif­fer­ent styles of music.

After gradu­ation she spent two years per­form­ing with the Indian fusion band Savateen, play­ing their own ori­ginal works. High­lights were the Brno Street fest­ival in the Czech Repub­lic and at the Mil­len­nium Park and Birla Temple, in Cal­cutta. In 2005, she decided to follow her dream by going to India to study with violin maes­tro Kala Ram­nath, which became the first of many visits to the coun­try. In her most recent visit she learnt how to per­form a clas­sical Indian recital of forty five minutes which includes Rag Bihag and Rag Manj Khamaj.

Pro­jects

Olivia has played twice at Gla­ston­bury fest­ival with fla­menco gui­tar­ist Nick Wilkin­son as well as col­lab­or­at­ing with Graham Clark, Seam­ing To, Kirsty Almeida, OdBod Collective.

Cur­rent Projects

The Owl Ensemble, com­pris­ing a string quar­tet and a jazz trio has been described as invent­ive, sub­vert­ing clas­sical tra­di­tions. They premiered at Manchester Jazz Fest­ival in 2008 and are excited to be per­form­ing at Con­tact Theatre 20th July this year. They have most recently recor­ded an album, Owl, bring­ing their amaz­ing fusion of the clas­sical string quar­tet with the jazz trio. The result is an ori­ginal col­lec­tion of rhythmic and melodic tunes, integ­rat­ing east and west. Take a taste here!

Her second band, Unfurl is an innov­at­ive quin­tet who col­lab­or­ate, draw­ing from their diverse influ­ences of Jazz, Indian and Arabic rhythms. They have appeared at Manchester, Marsden, Marl­bor­ough and Brecon Jazz Fest­ivals. Unfurl’s com­pos­i­tions are inspired by nature and Buddhist ideals. Olivia is also cur­rently work­ing with Glenn Sharp’s Jadid Ensemble.

Awards

In Janu­ary 2007, Olivia was awar­ded a research and devel­op­ment grant from The Arts Coun­cil Eng­land for a col­lab­or­a­tion between her band Unfurl and a video artist. In 2009 she was com­mis­sioned by Manchester Jazz Fest­ival and pro­duced ‘Mask’, a col­lab­or­a­tion between Unfurl and video artist Mark Cameron Minard. In 2009 Olivia was one of eight musi­cians in the coun­try to be selec­ted to be a par­ti­cipant of the Ser­i­ous Take Five artist devel­op­ment scheme.

Clas­sical Indian Music

She has per­formed inter­na­tion­ally with tabla play­ers Mukesh Jadhav from Pune, Kousic Sen from UK and has given solo recit­als in the UK. From 2005–2009 she played with Tarang, the National South Asian Music Ensemble in venues such as The Bridge­wa­ter Hall and The Pur­cell Room. She has recently col­lab­or­ated with bansuri player Lisa Mal­lett and sit­ar­ist Jonathan Meyer at the Sham­bala Fest­ival in 2010. She also plays con­certs with Razwan Sarwar and Mohinder Singh.

Multi-Media Work

Olivia has always been inter­ested in com­bin­ing with other art forms. In 2006 she com­posed the soundtrack to a doc­u­ment­ary film for Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion in schools, ‘Buddhist Pil­grim­age: An Indian Spir­itual Jour­ney’ (The Clear Vision Trust).
A par­tic­u­lar high­light of her career was work­ing with LaMa­chine, 2008 com­mis­sioned by Liv­er­pool European Cap­ital of Cul­ture, described by The Observer as, ‘the biggest, most spec­tac­u­lar piece of street theatre ever seen in the UK’. She also com­pleted Mask, a multi-media col­lab­or­a­tion at The Con­tact Theatre, as part of Manchester Jazz Fest­ival in 2009 with moving image artist Mark Cameron Minard.

Albums

Olivia has recor­ded with pro­du­cer Tony Remy for sax­o­phon­ist Jean Toussaint’s album ‘Nazaire’ (All­tone 2000). She fea­tures on Kirsty Almeida’s ‘Pure Blue Green’ (Decca 2010), and Fiona Nehama Abrahami’s ‘Random Excess’ (Music­Womb 2009). Olivia released her own album ‘Amoghasiddhi’ in 2008. Her latest album Owl has been recor­ded with the Owl Ensemble.

Reviews

Nour­ished by Indian and jazz tra­di­tions, but with an eleg­ance that comes from her clas­sical train­ing, Olivia Moore’s violin has an East­ern tang that is genu­inely entran­cing — Al Brown­lee – City Life, 10th Nov 2008

As usual Moore’s com­pos­i­tions were exuber­ant and poignant affairs; each sec­tion of music acting like mini­ature vign­ettes. This is music that is intric­ate and yet cap­able of telling a uni­ver­sal story, what that story is, is prob­ably very dif­fer­ent to each listener, but it is this abil­ity to con­jure vivid imagery that makes it hugely access­ible. — Chris Ack­er­ley, The Sound of Now, June 29, 2010 http://​the​soun​dofnow​.word​press​.com/​c​a​t​e​g​o​r​y​/​l​i​v​e​-​r​e​v​i​e​ws/

her obvi­ous joy in play­ing swells through her impas­sioned but restrained violin and offers her audi­ence both an emo­tional and a cereb­ral ful­fil­ment. — Chris Long, BBC Manchester 12th Nov 2008