Django Bates | en

Django Bates (born 2nd October 1960 in Beckenham, Kent, United Kingdom) is a composer and virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. He is widely regarded as one the most creative musicians in the world.

Bates rose to prominence in Loose Tubes, a jazz orchestra which was considered the U.K.'s most exciting and inspirational groups in the 1980s. It played a key role in re-energising the British jazz scene.

Bates founded his small group Human Chain in 1979. He formed his own nineteen-piece jazz orchestra Delightful Precipice in 1991. He also put together the Powder Collapse Orchestra, which recorded Music for the Third Policeman, and Circus Umbilicus, a true circus cum musical project.

In addition to his work as a leader, Bates has been prominently featured as a sideman as a member of Dudu Pukwana's Zila, Tim Whitehead's Borderline, Ken Stubbs' First House, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Sidsel Endresen and in the bands of George Russell and George Gruntz. He has performed alongside Michael Brecker, Tim Berne, Christian Jarvi, Vince Mendoza, David Sanborn, Kate Rusby and Don Alias.

In recent years, Bates has concentrated on writing large scale compositions on commission. These include Dream Kitchen for percussionist Evelyn Glennie, Fine Frenzy for the Shobhana Jeyasingh Dance Company, and a piano concerto for Joanna MacGregor and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra entitled What It's Like to be Alive. He also wrote the first ever concerto for electric keyboard entitled 2000 Years Beyond UNDO, which was performed at the millennium Barbican Festival.

He has worked closely with director Lucy Bailey on several theatre projects, including Gobbledegook for The Gogmagogs, Baby Doll, (Birmingham Rep, National Theatre, Albery Theatre), Stairs to the Roof (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Postman Always Rings Twice (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Albery Theatre) and Titus Andronicus (The Globe Theatre). They also worked on a short film You Can Run. Other theatre work includes Greg Doran’s production of As You Like It (RSC), and Campbell Graham’s Out There!.

Django was the inaugural Artistic Director of FuseLeeds ‘04 – a biennial new music festival. He used this opportunity to initiate the first orchestral commission for Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead), thereby discovering the next composer in residence for the BBC Concert Orchestra. Django also commissioned sixty composers including Laurie Anderson, Gavin Bryars, Sir Patrick Moore and John Zorn, to write one bar each. He then quilted these bars into the piece Premature Celebration which was performed by Evan Parker and the London Sinfonietta to celebrate Evan’s 60th Birthday.

The Wire voted Django Best UK Jazz Composer in 1987 and 1990. In 1997, he won the prestigious Jazzpar Prize, the world's only international award for jazz. .