Kit Downes, Lucy Railton

Friday, March 13th 2015 sees the premiere of a new suite of music inspired by the history, aesthetics and acoustics of Dean Clough Mills, the nationally renowned business and arts centre in Halifax.

The suite will be devised during a four-day residency at Dean Clough by leading musicians Kit Downes (piano) and Lucy Railton (cello), aided by electro-acoustic expert Alex Killpartrick.

Kit Downes has played in Dean Clough's International Jazz season on several occasions – at the last of which he unexpectedly premiered a piano and cello suite with Lucy Railton that received rapturous applause from the audience.

It was this that led Kit to suggest a residency where he and Lucy would befriend some of Dean Clough’s 4,000 workers, explore the atmosphere and acoustics of its extraordinary Victorian architecture and seek to learn something of its industrial past (it was once the world’s largest carpet mill).

Working on Dean Clough’s Fazioli grand piano, Kit and Lucy will compose a musical suite to be premiered and simultaneously recorded (...so that the audience can receive a free digital download) on Friday, March 13th 2015.