[9] He has also initiated several projects that explore common ground between different musical disciplines, such as "Urban Classic" (2006), which drew together five grime emcees and the BBC Concert Orchestra.
In 2008 Hazlewood formed his All Star Collective ensemble to play Tubular Bells at the Glastonbury Festival, featuring artists from across genres including Adrian Utley of Portishead, Will Gregory of Goldfrapp and jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard.
[15] It went on to play the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London,[16] Sage Gateshead and St George’s Bristol in 2011, a re-enactment of Mike Oldfield's own group performance 38 years previously.
[18] In 2009 he staged his first festival “Play the Field” with Dragons' Den's Deborah Meadon with the mutual goal of bringing music to a wider audience in the West Country.
[20] In 2010 Hazlewood conducted a live score for the 1926 silent film The Passion of Joan Arc, composed by Adrian Utley and Will Gregory, commissioned by Bristol Beacon and Watershed Media centre.
[21] His "Orchestra in a Field" [22] festival took place at Glastonbury Abbey in 2012 with performances of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Bizet’s Carmen, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and a collaboration with Professor Green and Labrinth.
The orchestra was the subject of a documentary by Channel Four,[26] screened in the hours between the end of the final sporting event at London 2012 Paralympics and the Closing Ceremony where they made their world debut alongside Coldplay.
The ensemble play an unconventional mix of acoustic, analogue, digital, and assistive technology instruments, drawing on the unique talents of their musicians and collaborating with high profile artists from across genres to create new and accessible orchestral music experiences.
[28] In 2019 Paraorchestra took their Love Unlimited Synth Orchestra, conducted by Hazlewood, to The Park stage,[29] celebrating the genius of Barry White alongside Gruff Rhys, Nadine Shah, Larry Heard, Eno Williams of Ibibio Sound Machine, YolanDa Brown, Adrian Utley, Clive Deamer and Lianne La Havas.
[30] The ensemble consisted of symphonic and electronic instruments performing an arrangement of fragments of melodies, rhythms, and sounds from the original album, composed by Charlotte Harding and Lloyd Coleman.
[35] The Anatomy of the Orchestra, created and conducted by Hazlewood in 2018, saw a 50-strong ensemble of Paraorchestra musicians spread across the Atrium of Bristol Beacon, performing Steve Reich’s The Four Sections.
[36] In 2020, Hazlewood and Paraorchestra were commissioned by the British Council to perform a version of Anatomy of the Orchestra at Garage Museum of Contemporary Arts in Moscow as part of the UK-Russia Year of Music.
[41] The Nature of Why toured the UK in 2019 playing Brighton Festival, Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, The Empress Ballroom at Winter Gardens, Blackpool, Kneehigh’s Asylum in St Austell, and The Lowry in Salford.
The piece included performances of work by Terry Riley, Mike Oldfield, Philip Glass, Pauline Oliveros and Steve Reich and featured a visual narrative by video artist John Minton.
[citation needed] In 1995 Hazlewood and British theatre director Mark Dornford-May began working on a venture called Broomhill Opera in Kent, England.
[55] In 2014, Hazlewood scored a reworking of John Gay's The Beggars Opera, Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) written by Carl Grose and directed by Mike Shepherd for Kneehigh Theatre.
in 2018 which had its debut to critical acclaim ‘Singing truth to power: How Kneehigh's new show uses mass karaoke to topple a dictator’ Independent [59] in August 2018, and toured nationally in 2019.
It featured members of Paraorchestra and was highlighted by New Statesman as ‘Serious, high-minded and brilliant ... a stunning lesson in not patronising audiences.’ [66][67] The film centres on Beethoven’s famous 5th Symphony for a detailed look at the life, genius, and mental health struggles of the great composer in the context of, and drawing parallels with, Hazlewood’s own childhood trauma.