2020

the year in review

A few selected highlights from a very different year…

january

Celtic Connections

It was a genuine pleasure to kick the year off with some of my favourite musicians, performing at a festival I’ve always wanted to at since I was a child.

You can find out more about my work with Innotet by clicking here.

february

Russia & The Composer Series

February saw my first visit to Russia - and what a trip it was. Performing at the Moscow International Guitar Festival followed by a performance at a beautiful venue in the countryside called Elizvaro. I had a great time playing there with the wonderful German guitarist, Claus Boesser-Ferrari.

February also saw the start of a series I produced for The North American Guitar called The Composer Series. This is where I took one of their fine instruments and composed a short piece inspired by the guitars’ unique voice. I’ve created a YouTube Playlist of the series which you can watch below. And, if you’re a guitarist and want to give any of these pieces a try, the scores are available for free via the link in the video descriptions.

march

Germany + Jupiter Release

March started off rather wonderfully with a trip to Germany where I performed alongside Jule Malischke and Antonio Forcione. We had a great gig at Jazzclub Tonne in Dresden before heading to Giengen for the guitar festival there, organised by Jule. Unfortunately, a couple of hours before doors were due to open, the authorities decided to cancel it due to the worsening Coronavirus situation. We still managed to have a wonderful time at the festival’s hotel, with impromptu performances and great hangs with some of the fantastic luthiers in attendance.

On March 16th, I released my first single on my Tom Sands signature guitar - Jupiter. Really enjoyed putting this one together. You can watch the video below and check out the download bundles by clicking here.

april

Livestream Performances

With virus restrictions wiping gigs off the map, attention shifted to the potential of online performances. I was invited to play at various online events and festivals, for which I was very grateful! One particulate highlight, The Online Guitar Show (hosted by Tristan Seume) happened in April, and we performed alongside the likes of Clive Carroll, Tim Edey, Sönke Meinen and Jule Malischke. I’ve combined a few of the sets from my various livestream performances into this here YouTube video if you’d like to take a look and a listen!

may

Commissions

At the beginning of the year I made commissions available via my website and by May I had racked up a lovely little collection. I so enjoyed the process of composing these to the various briefs the clients threw my way. Below’s a little teaser, and you can find out more by clicking here.

june

A Distanced Collaboration with Sönke Meinen

Ever since Sönke and I first met at the Ullapool Guitar Festival a couple of years ago, we haven’t stopped collaborating on duet projects together! We were due to perform alongside one another multiple times throughout this year at various gigs in Germany and the UK… so failing the ability to jam in person we worked on this duet of my piece, Red Dog Running, which we released in June. Sönke goes full beast mode here!

july

The College Launch

The extra time at home this year gave me the opportunity to work on something I had been wanting to make a reality for quite a while. So, after a good few weeks of work bringing it all together, July saw the launch of The College - a collection of scores, tuition videos, study pieces, archived recordings, backing tracks and more. I was so thrilled with the response, and to-date we’ve had students enrolled from over 12 different countries from around the world.

august

Another Cross-Continental Jam + Ashokan Farewell

I first met Sylent Nqo when performing over in Zimbabwe at HIFA (Harare International Festival of Arts) - such an inspiring musician. I’ve really missed my travels over to Zim, and I get regular doses of Sylent’s music via Instagram. When I first saw this clip I knew I had to jump on in, and this is what happened!

August also saw me complete a commissioned arrangement of a beautiful fiddle by Jay Ungar called Ashokan Farewell. Here it is if you fancy taking a listen (and this also became a study piece for The College).

september

Inspiration Courtesy of Tom Sands: Patina + An Autumn Moment

To keep me entertained during lockdown, Tom Sands sent me a steady stream of utterly wonderful instruments. He also commissioned me to write a piece which could be used as demo tune across all of his subsequent instruments - a really fun challenge. You can take a listen to that below, along with a piece I wrote on a particularly beautiful Model M by Tom.

october

A New Project with Antonio Forcione

Anyone who’s had a conversation with me about about how my musical life has developed will know how integral a figure Antonio Forcione is in that story. He was, after all, the guy who inspired me to start writing music in the first place. So, any opportunity to work with him is always such a pleasure, and in October we embarked on a new project together - an in-depth notation book of his pieces. What a joy it is to learn these pieces and get them down on paper. Here’s the first tune we worked on together - Mirror.

november

A New Arrival + A New Commission Video

As if 2020 needed any more craziness, my wife and I welcomed our first son into the world in November!

And, in my newly sleep-deprived state I was able to share this commission I really enjoyed working on:

december

The Big Ol’ Festive Discount

And so we made it to the festive season…! Thanks for reading through to this point, and indeed for the support this year - really means the world.

If you’re interested in doing some Christmas shopping then let me give you this discount code, giving you 15% off everything in my online shop (except t-shirts as they are produced by a different company), right the way through to December 18th. Just pop this code in at checkout:

XMAS2020

And what can you find in the shop? Well… let me give you a flavour:

Thanks for all the support this year, and here’s to hoping 2021 will see live music return in a big big way! You can expect a new album from me, for sure!

W