Composer
Biography
Piano, French horn and composition were all part of Gwilym Simcock's schooling at Chetham's in Manchester, where Les Chisnall and Steve Berry opened jazz to him; at the Royal Academy of Music he graduated with first-class honours and received the Principal's Prize. His solo recordings include Good Days at Schloss Elmau. He writes for jazz groups, chamber ensembles, choir and orchestra, including Move!, recorded on the album Instrumation, and has worked with Dave Holland, Bill Bruford and, in his quartet, Pat Metheny. He later became professor of jazz piano at the Royal Academy of Music, and he was the first jazz musician taken into the New Generation Artists scheme of BBC Radio 3. Kenny Wheeler and the guitarist Mike Walker, with whom he co-leads The Impossible Gentlemen, belong to the same circle of collaborators, and commissions have come from the Britten Sinfonia, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia.