I’ve written two new ‘suites’ for big band for the Byres Road Big Band concert in the Blythswood Festival on Sunday 17 May.

I say ‘suites’ – actually each of them is just three pieces, so, as I’ve been joking, two three piece suites, that’s four amchairs and two settees :)

Seriously, though, this music is important to me. The start of my dizzing career in music – culminating in a PhD in composition and my role as Head of PG Music at the Conservatoire – starts with me hearing ‘Take Five’ on the radio sometime in the early 80s and being inspired to teach myself jazz trumpet.

This led me on a journey through a roster of currently-residing-in-the-where-are-they-now-file bands in the Edinburgh area, picking up skills in writing, arranging and music theory as I went.

Through the 90s and 00s I was still gigging as jazz trumpet player, but, creatively, I broadened out into ‘contemporary’ composition: often jazz ‘informed’ perhaps, but not actual jazz writing.

That led on to the PhD which, again, had no echt jazz in it, although the collective away in which I ‘devised’ the music in collaboration with a group of players certainly bears a relationship to jazz practice.

I perhaps shouldn’t say this in public, but unfortunately the PhD kind of killed me, in terms of straight contemporary writing. I’m still proud of the music I wrote during that period, particularly my final show ‘The Other Other Hand’ but, creatively, I found myself at the end of that process kind of fed up with jumping through the hoops of formal ‘composition’.

After the PhD, I escaped for a while into the world of livecoding – certainly a strong improvisatory element there, but, once again not jazz.

Finally, the epiphany. Although my first instrument is trumpet, I’ve also played trombone on and off for many years. After spending the covid years woodshedding on trumpet, it occured to me for some reason to get my bomtrone back from the person I had lent it to and dust it off.

For a lark, I decided one week to go and sit in on trombone for a rehearsal of the Byres Road Big Band.

At the end of that rehearsal I made this kind of tearfully-joyful confession to this room full of musicians – that I really didn’t know at all! – to the effect that it had been one of the greatest musical experiences of my life, and that I finally realised I should have been playing trombone in a big band all along.

So. For the last two years ago I’ve been working with the band, slowly improving my trombone playing to the point where I can almost cope with typical big band repertoire.

Along with that, I’ve been writing for the band, both dusting off and reorganising old pieces and coming up with new ideas.

There is a good deal I could say about that, but this posting is long and rambling enough as it is, so I’ll leave that for next time.

Here’s the gig:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/jsimonvanderwalt/2125487

Sun 17 May 2026 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
National Piping Centre, Glasgow
Doors 1900
Band 1930-2200 with interval
£13/£7 concession

After the performance of 'Ha!' last year, conductor Donnie Deacon approached me to see if I had anything else for strings: in particular, if I had any solo works that might be suitable for students. I've been enjoying getting back into writing recently so… rather than dig through the back catalog, I've written two new pieces.

'headlong--->]' is for unaccompanied violin. The score is deliberately written with no bowings, articulations, dynamics or tempo gradations, with the idea that each player has to work the piece out for themselves: to make sense of it in their own way.

'constant' is for viola and piano. In some ways it is a recomposition of 'complicated circumstances' from 'The Other Other' hand: the mystical ascending chord sequence is the same, but the material for the viola completely different to the original clarinet part.

Just mentioning these pieces here for now: I'm waiting for Donnie and I to get a chance to look at them together before I set them in stone.

I recently workshopped Trwiwikrama as part of the introductory gamelan module that I teach at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. It went really well, and I'm starting to think this may turn out to be one of my best pieces.

Why? Well, several reasons:

Its simple but rewarding to play. I've found that I can teach the trombone gesture in about 10 minutes, and after that the players take to it readily. Long controlled glisses on the trombone are not hard to do, but are an interesting change from what trombonists generally find in the repertoire, whether in classical or commercial playing.

For the gamelan players, again, it is simple to teach but not boring to play, while the person playing the electronic effects gets to have fun making strange sounds.

There is no score. This offers just the right amount of flexibility: everyone knows what the gestures are that make up the piece, but there is still openness in how many times each thing happens.

It sounds effective. I think the audience are going to take to it. The overall impression of the piece will be dramatic and unusual without being weird for the sake of weird, and the story of the piece is a good match for how it sounds.

We'll see! First public outing strongly pencilled in for 4 May 2026.

In May 2026 I’m going to be 65 years old :) and I’m planning a couple of events around that time to celebrate and enjoy some of the music I’ve written over the decades.

One of the most important events I’m looking forward to is a concert with the Byres Road Big Band (date tbc). I’ve been lead trombone with them for two and a bit years now, greatly enjoying playing my second instrument just for fun.

I’ve written several original charts for them, sometimes (but not always) rearrangements of older compositions of mine. The major ambition for the concert in May is to perform ‘Between Two Oceans’, a suite of three jazz pieces originally written in in 1998.

I tried out some of this material last year with the Mackintosh Jazz Composers Ensemble, and am now in the process of rescoring it for the BRBB. I’ve decided to make the whole thing a guitar feature for our excellent young guitarist Matthew, who has recently started studying at the RCS.

Here’s the probably-nearly-finished BRBB version of the third movement of the suite ‘Ninety Mile Beach’:

https://musescore.com/user/12368/scores/30475634

I'm re-doing an (over-fiddly) bit of piano notation:

Finale ca 2003:

MuseScore 4:

The font is in theory the same: using Finale Maestro in MuseScore. I can't decide if I prefer the rather lighter weight lines in Finale or not. Also: it's a stupid bit of notation anyway, but also can't figure out whether the first crotchet in the LH should go before or after the whole note.

The piece for slide brass and gamelan now has a provisional title, 'Triwikrama', and a provisional programme note:

In the Javanese wayang purwa tradition, triwikrama is the power by which a character is transformed into a giant.

Kresna takes on the form of Brahala Ireng, while Puntadewa becomes his opposite number, Brahala Putih. Rahwana becomes the ten-headed Dasamuka: even Anoman the monkey-god has the ability to change into a triwikrama form.

This piece was developed as part of a project initiated by Dr John Jacobs that seeks to explore the tuning possibilities of slide brass instruments in relation to the non-standard and non-equal tempered tunings found in Javanese music.

The use of the gamelan instruments is only distantly related to Javanese models. The drum ostinato is loosely inspired by certain traditional ladrang patterns. The repeated notes are reminiscent of the gangsaran form, while the upward pitch movement finds echo in the registral ascent through three pathet in a wayang performance.

In coming up with this piece, I didn't set out to portray a character transforming into an angry giant, but it does kind of sound like that :)

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Update re Javanese pronunciations: Triwikråmå, Brahålå Ireng, Kresnå, Puntådéwå, Dåsåmukå.

Last week I enjoyed being part of a gamelan residency in Poolewe, where Gamelan Nyai Cabe Rawit (Madam Hot Chilli Gamelan) is currently based. Taking part were a members of the local gamelan community, Gamelan Naga Mas, plus some individual players from the England, Ireland, and the United States.

A key part of the residency for me was working with Dr John Jacobs (pictured above right) on compositions for slide brass – trombone and slide trumpet – and gamelan.

Here's an early draft of an as-yet-unnamed piece I'm working on:

slidey_poolewe_02.mp3

Sketch for the piece I'm going to try out next week: gamelan, trombone and slide trumpet.

Obvs this is going to need some explanation in the workshop :)

Update – here's the drum notation:

A very quick SuperCollider demo of some sine waves sliding around in contrary motion. Partly because its a musical gesture I'm interested in using, and partly to see if I can remember anything at all about composing in SuperCollider after a year or so away.

(Which I can :)

I've been chatting with gamelan musician John Jacobs about a piece he is planning to bring to the Poolewe Gamelan Retreat in Septemer. John is also a trumpet player, and tells me that he has for many years been curious about the possibility of using the microtonal affordances of the slide trumpet with gamelan.

Within the Javanese tradition there are existing practices that seek to exploit fine differences in intonation. No two gamelan sets are tuned exactly alike, and players are accustomed to playing the ‘same’ piece using what would to Western ears sound like a completely different collection of musical frequencies. It is also the case that singers and rebab players will make fine adjustements to pitch in response to the pathet (mode) of the music, and not necessarily follow the pitch of the instruments exactly.

Broadening this out, I've been thinking of creating some work or works of my own that contrast two different kinds of musical material:

Fixed discrete pitches that decay (not necessarily equal tempered)​

• gamelan
• detuned piano, guitar, harp
• ‘out-of-tune’ instruments
• pitched digital samples

Continuously variable sustatined pitch​

• slide brass (trombone, slide trumpet)
• slide whistle (?!)
• bowed strings, rebab (Javanese spike fiddle)
• human voice
• digital/analog oscillators

As a first step, I have some ideas for a piece to try out at the residency, with John on slide trumpet, me on trombone, plus the gamelan.