THE VIOLIN AND OUT

“I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie”

CONOR OBERST

So. A professional career as a musician with thirty years of experience. Of work. Of recording sessions, of concerts, of countless takes, of standing ovations and of sitting around. A story maybe half the way through which is already too vast to articulate in the confine of the ABOUT section on a website.

One, two.

From the outset the commitment was to constantly evolve, elevate and refine the craft as a musician. This is a case study of rigorous study, practice and sacred precision.

A prodigious path that led to prestigious dates in a roll call of the most respected classical concerts around the world. Extensive orchestral work in both recorded and live form established a reputation and demand which continues to grow.

But the musician, of course, is an artist. And art is restless. And it is curious.

The path zig zags into the edges and underground. It eagerly soaks up African, Arabic and Eastern music, it draws from folk, it dives headlong into strato amplified stadium rock and it loosens up and becomes a part of the fertile organism of club culture.

Jazz and reggae enter the blood system.

Gill quickly became a living validation of the theory that there are only two kinds of music. Good music and the other kind. (Duke Ellington, 1962 if you’re wondering)

The career path is now a complex and dense cluster of dots that connects symphony orchestral programmes to sound system basslines to arena rock legacy to small hours house and disco abandon.

The unshackled psychedelic deep space saucer eyed trips of Super Furry Animals and Spiritualised next to Vanessa Mae in the spectral shadow of a holographic Elvis Presley.

Art defies logic. These dots define a life in art.

Along the way, the curiosity led to command. Other instruments. Always the violin but now piano, guitar and beyond. Fascination and possibility. Studio and production techniques and technology. Software programmes. More dots. More connections.

A longstanding reverence for improvised and spontaneous music.

Somewhere deep in the rural East Sussex where she lives a collaborative project with neo renaissance man Ron Geesin is adding new and intriguing dots to the constellation.

The future is unwritten. Listen.

GE 2025

Work

Bryan Adams
Alabama 3
Micheal Ball
Richard Barbierie
Gary Barlow
Dennis Bovell
Biscuit Boy
Ali Campbell
Chicago
Natalie Cole
The Elvis Tour
Evita
Maurice Gibb
The Herbaliser
Jools Holland
Sir John Holt
Enrique Iglesias
Sir Elton John
Judge Jools
Mick Karn
Janet Kaye
Lulu
Vanessa Mae
Robert Miles
Trevor Nelson
Olive
The Opera Babes
Frankie Paul
Lionel Ritchie
Razorlight
Tom Robinson
Soul II Soul
Sting
Joss Stone
Joe Strummer
Rod Stewart
Super Furry Animals
War Of The Worlds
Russel Watson
Jo Whiley
Whistle Down The Wind
The Who
Yomanda
Zero 7

Wonders & Inspirations

Playing music is a means of distorting, changing, defining and challenging time and space. As a musician it is impossible not to imagine what it would be like, or what it would have been like, to play with musicians who have inspired me. Of course, through listening, it is true that trace elements of all of these people are present when I play. The list is vast and endless and expands constantly when I hear something which connects with me.

Fela Kuti in 1974. The Rolling Stones in 1971. J Dilla in 2004. King Tubby in 1976. Sampha in 2015. Brian Eno anytime. Ruben Gonzalez in 1978. Arthur Russell in 1982. Grace Jones at Compass Point. Eska and Tara Cunningham as soon as possible. Pink Floyd 1973. Gil Evans and Miles Davis 1958. Prince 1986. Grace Wales Bonner now.