Stuart Brown is a professional drummer, bandleader and composer based in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied Electronics with Music at Glasgow University before going on to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston on full scholarship. He is well established on the Scottish music scene as a jazz and session drummer, has played on around 40 albums and toured internationally in Europe, USA, India, Brazil and New Zealand. For the last 4 years he has been travelling to India with the Brian Molley Quartet as part of an ongoing collaborative project with Rajasthani Folk musicians and Bollywood percussionist, Krishna Kishore. He is a regular member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Mr McFalls Chamber, Simon Thacker’s Ritmata, Sugarwork, and has previously performed with artists such as Craig Armstrong (film composer for Romeo and Juliet/Moulin Rouge), David Byrne of Talking Heads (for the Young Adam film sound track) and was one of the on set and studio percussionists for the recent Netflix movie, Outlaw King.
He has released two critically acclaimed albums with his live cartoon music ensemble, Stu Brown’s Twisted Toons, which made Mojo Magazine’s Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2009/2016 and The Times Top Ten Jazz Albums of 2016 as well as featuring on BBC 6 Music, Radio 2, Radio 3, World Service, Jazz FM and more. He has also been involved in a number of interdisciplinary collaborations including work with glass artist Carrie Fertig, music/dance collaborations with Jer Reid, Solene Weinachter, Marta Masiero, Chrissie Adril and a number of live film score performances.
As a composer his previous commissions include a 2010 collaborative work with American drummer John Hollenbeck for Edinburgh Jazz Festival, two Creative Scotland funded commissions, a 2016 live silent film score commission for Hippfest Festival of Silent Cinema with his electronic duo Herschel 36 and has done a range of commercial recording/ composing work for clients such as Kuoni Travel, Mary’s Meals, Edinburgh Film Festival, Citizen’s Theatre, Baillie Gifford, Starcatchers and MTV/Channel 4 (Skins US TV show).
In 2018 he was selected as one of 15 composers (from nearly 300 applicants) to take part in Sound and Music’s composers mentoring and development scheme, New Voices, during which he is focusing on creating solo and collaborative work combining acoustic drums and percussion with real time electronic audio-visual triggering.
Cove Park Residency
Stuart will be attending Cove Park as one of Sound and Music’s 15 New Voices composers. During his residency he will focus on developing solo work for drums/percussion/electronics and real time audio-visual triggering as well as exploring the potential of this approach for use in collaborative work including contemporary dance.
