GREG LYONS
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Greg Lyons was born in Tynemouth, England, on the 11th of August 1958. His musical explorations began early, influenced by his parents' love of jazz and classical music, and by the time he left school he was already working as a bassist in bands of various styles.
The late 70s saw him working as a versatile and in-demand bassist in Hamburg before switching to saxophone. After a year of self-imposed exile he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston USA, returning to London in 1983 where he started working with bands such as Grand Union, Loose Tubes, and quartets/quintets under his own direction.
In the mid 80s he briefly took up residence in the Canary Islands where he developed a strong affinity for Brazilian and Latin music that has pervaded his subsequent work.
Back in London he worked with El Sonido de Londres, Sambatucada, Roberto Pla, touring with Cuban exiles Alfredo Rodriguez, Patato Valdes and Bebo Valdez.He continued to lead his own bands in London until the mid 90s when he moved to Malaysia and was one of the founders of the fusion band Face First who recorded their debut album in 1996, produced by Eric Marienthal and distributed internationally by Universal.
He began his teaching activities in 1995 at the International College of Music in Kuala Lumpur, where he began to nurture a new generation of composer/improvisers. He now teaches mainly privately but continues to perform and teach in masterclasses around the world. His strengths are in his ear-training approach to building an improviser's vocabulary, and a melodic approach to jazz harmony and writing.
Greg Lyons plays at Blu Jaz with Darren Moore (on drums), Chok Kerong (on hammond organ) and Dawn Ho (vocal) every Sat in Sept 07 and every Friday in Oct, Nov and Dec 07).
http://www.geocities.com/gregblyons/profilepage.html
http://www.greglyons.net/home.html
Tim O'Dwyer
Tim O'Dwyer is a composer, saxophonist and improviser involved in a diverse range of musical genres concurrently including installation/multi-media, contemporary classical, free improvisation, punk-rock, and free jazz.
He was born in Melborne, Australia in 1971.
After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1993 he studied saxophone with Evan PARKER and composition with Richard BARRETT in London and Amsterdam. He has been a recipient of numerous Australia Council and Arts Victoria funding for overseas study, recording, touring and commissions. Over the last ten years Tim has composed small and large scale works of notation and for improvisers with his band Bucketrider and ELISION Ensemble that have been performed and critically acclaimed throughout Australia, Europe, Japan and in New York. A major part of his creative work has involved cross-art form collaboration with visual artists. He has been commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery to write music in response to the their acquisition Void #13 by Anglo/Indian sculptor Anish KAPOOR, subsequently recorded at Radio Bremen in 2000. The The Festival of Perth for the installation Lament of Desire with ELISION Ensemble and Thai artist Araya RASDJARMREARNSOOK. And The Kyoto Arts Centre to create an installation with Japanese artist Katsushige NAKAHASHI called Zero Project to be presented in Kyoto in August 2003.
Recently Tim has worked on developing an approach to composition that juxtaposes blocks of dense layers of sounds with blocks of silence. His solo project multiple-repeat recorded and commissioned by Radio Bremen in May 2002 illustrates this approach utilising saxophones as the sound source overdubbed many times. This multi-layering aesthetic has been further developed for real-time composition with the use of Max/MSP processing and occupies his current solo work, particularly in eight-channel surround sound. At present, Tim is holding a commission to write a new chamber work for voice and five instruments to be premiered by ELISION Ensemble in early 2004.
http://www.elision.org.au/players/odwyer.html
http://www.timodwyer.com/
