Among the many hats I wear as a musician, one of my favourites is working in the recording studio. Over the last 20+ years I’ve produced, edited, and mixed recordings for releases on many of the leading labels in contemporary music, including NMC, Kairos, NEOS, mode, aeon, Winter & Winter, and Huddersfield Contemporary Records, along the way working with amazing performers such as ELISION, the Bozzini Quartet, Wet Ink, and a particularly fruitful, longstanding relationship with EXAUDI that goes back to the group’s first recording in 2004 and has since included seven discs across five labels.

One of my favourite things about the work is that it often puts me in contact with repertoire that I might not otherwise have a chance to know intimately. I get to play a creative role in constructing a kind of idealised, hyper-real version of pieces that, in many cases, have never been recorded previously, so the decisions made throughout the recording and editing process contribute in key ways to the construction of a work’s performance practice. Working as a record producer brings together many of the things I love about the other areas of my activity—it is part composer, part conductor, and, at its best, is very much a creative act, a collaborative exchange with singers and instrumentalists to create a version of a piece that finds the right balance between the energy and vibrance of a live performance and the precision and rigour of a rehearsal. It is work I very much enjoy.