Kit Downes

He has toured the world playing piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands ('ENEMY', 'Troyka', 'Elt' and 'Vyamanikal') as well as artists such as Squarepusher, Thomas Strønen and Django Bates.

He also plays in collaborations with saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, composer Shiva Feshareki and with the band 'ENEMY'.

He is also currently working with fiddle-player Aidan O'Rourke, composer Max de Wardener, Berlin-based jazz avant-gardist Oliver Steidle's 'Killing Popes' and with singer/photographer Paula Rae Gibson.

In 2013, he was asked by Django Bates to join his new ensemble ’The TDEs’ to play a new commission for both BBC Radio 3 and Cheltenham Jazz Festival (alongside his Troyka band mates).

Downes also collaborated (on a range of acoustic and electronic instruments) with composers Matt Rogers and Mica Levi, electronic musician Leafcutter John, drummer Seb Rochford, filmmaker Ashley Pegg, artist Dave McKean, animator Lesley Barnes and geneticist Adam Rutherford (for the Wellcome Trust).

A mixture of written and semi-scored/semi-improvised pieces, it focuses on the nuances and unique features of both smaller chamber organs local to rural Suffolk as well as larger grander instruments from bigger cities around the UK.

The result is a major new body of 365 tunes which O'Rourke is recording solo and in duos with Downes, guitarist Sorren Maclean and harpist Esther Swift.