Daryl Runswick, composer/performer (b. 1946). He was educated at Ronnie Scott’s Club and Cambridge University. His early career was spent writing and performing pop and jazz music, and more recently in concert pieces. He is also involved in free improvisation and indeterminate musical, and can say that he has worked with John Cage and Ornette Coleman. His career has been influenced by this duality as an improvising musician, singer with Electric Phoenix and record producer, broadcaster/broadcaster, educator, community animateur, film/TV composer, and bassplayer. He was the Head of Composition at Trinity College of Music, London, for 10 years. Before retiring, he sought to combine the jazz improvisation skills with the complex structures of concert music. His one man show, Daryl Runswick in Droves, is the latest fruit of this research, synthesising every strand of his talent: composing/performing, jazz improvisation, concert music and song. Daryl can sing, rap, play keyboards, do live electronics and signal processing using a laptop. He also plays two new inventions: a high-strung fretless “alto” and a higher-strung “piccolo”, both customised bass guitars. Runswick started his musical career as a Cambridge chorister, but quickly moved into jazz and pop music. He was a bass player with many international stars, as well as leading his own jazz bands and touring the globe with John Dankworth (and Cleo Laine) throughout the 1970s. He spent his 20s and 30s creating pop songs and jazz instrumentals. In his 40s, 40s, and 50s, he created contemporary concert pieces and opera. His career has been characterized by this dual specialty (classical/popular). He has been a solo improvising pianist and a singer with Electric Phoenix. He has also been a session musician, an arranger (especially with Keith Tippett), a producer for record, and a conductor of his own TV and film scores. Daryl Runswick is also the author of the highly acclaimed textbook Rock, Jazz and Pop arranging, which has been translated in Japanese, German, and Korean. from www.darylrunswick.net
