Alexander Hawkins Octet

Composer, pianist and bandleader Alexander Hawkins brings a special ‘one-night-only’ expanded Ensemble to Café Oto. His regular group has been lauded as ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’ and ‘one of the most distinctive in modern jazz’, and this band’s most recent album featured prominently in many ‘Best of 2012’ lists in the UK and abroad.

This particular octet has been brought together to perform a new work commissioned by the BBC as part of its forthcoming ‘Baroque Season’. A lineup packed with musicians with complete facility in both fully-notated and fully-composed territories, coupled also with the presence of several multi-instrumentalists, promises a unique orchestral range.

Stellar NY-based trumpeter Peter Evans joins Percy Pursglove, Byron Wallen, and Oren Marshall in forming a brass-heavy core to the group. Hannah Marshall on ‘cello, Amanda Drummond on viola, and Pete McPhail on flutes and reeds provide countless possibilities; whilst at the heart of everything is the peerless drumming of Mark Sanders.

The evening’s second set will see the first performance of the work, before it is recorded the next day. In the first set, the musicians will break down into smaller groups to present brief improvised sets.