Lluis Mather

Performance

I’m a saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist based in Valencia, but playing all over. I was a Jerwood Jazz Fellow, have been a Henri Selmer Paris artist, was a finalist of the Young Jazz Musician of the Year competition, and received the Dave Holland Prize and Yamaha Jazz Scholarship. Between 2016 and 2020 I taught on the faculty at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Until 2018 I led my own quartet, quintet and nonet, collaborating with musicians such as Mike Gibbs, Julian Siegel and Hans Koller. My nonet project was commissioned by Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and explored the relationship between improvised/jazz and classical music.

I currently perform in a trio with Valencian musicians Albert Sanz and Tico Porcar.

Composition

As a composer, I do a lot of work integrating poetry and voice, my love of the harmony of Debussy/Messiaen, Berg, Dutilleaux, Takemitsu, together with aspects from the jazz or improvised music traditions. I also have an interest in a more experimental use of geometry and some forms of symmetry in rhythm and harmony.

During my 2019–20 Jazzlines Fellowship, I composed over 20 new pieces, culminating in the 2020 recording of a Nonet album The Trees.

Education & Teaching

I graduated with a first-class honours degree from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2010) and an MPhil from the Centre of Music and Science (experimental psychology), University of Cambridge (2017), where my dissertation examined embodied cognition.

I taught saxophone, improvisation and ensemble classes on the faculty at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2016–2020) together with highly regarded educator/musicians Mike Williams and Percy Pursglove.

My outreach work includes workshops in community music centres across the UK, and I have led masterclasses and workshops at a number of venues and schools, for instrumentalists of all ages and abilities.