Last Monday at Hotel du Vin in Birmingham I presented a commissioned piece for Birmingham arts group Hybrid.

It was a musical piece developed conceptually on the them of “them and us”. The process led me to develop a piece somewhat differently than I would normally do so it was an interesting composition process.

What was also very exciting about it was working with Iranian tar player Mustafa Abassi-Zadeh. Mustafa left Iran after his local Imam banned music and life as a sufi muslim became increasingly difficult there. He is making a living here in UK now but not enough of that comes from his great ability for performing.

Another local musician Frank Moon has been developing his oud playing (another Iranian instument) so I figured to get him involved along with violin, alto sax, guitar, bass and percussion. The effect was pretty cool and certainly went down well with the knowledgeable and arty crowd gathered at the event. I hope to keep this ensemble going and will be aiming for a gig or two in the near future, so watch this space.

As well as the music performance there were presentations by another group of Birmingham based artists. I will endeavor to get information on them up her soon.