Dan Lockheart - 'Roots to Leaves' with Alex Hitchcock

Delightfully melodic compositions combined with spoken word in a new project from Birmingham saxophonist and composer

We are proud to present this special show in partnership with Jazz Midlands Mentorship Scheme.

In April this year, saxophonist, composer and Birmingham Conservatoire graduate Dan Lockheart released TreesSpeakWords, a project featuring an octet of some of Birminghams finest musicians. The idea was to personify our own connection with nature and explore the ways in which it supports and inspires us in our everyday lives through means of music, improvisation, and words. Dan was awarded a place on the Jazz Midlands 2023 Mentorship Scheme, through which he has developed the next chapter of the project, Roots to Leaves, as a quintet under the mentorship of renowned tenor saxophonist Alex Hitchcock.

Dan commissioned talented Birmingham based poets to write a piece based on one of five prompts: Seed, Roots, Trunk, Branches, Leaves.Each of their pieces has then been inspiration for each composition within the suite, with their words woven into the score it has led to some interesting and creative music making. The suite explores the comparisons that can be made between the life of a tree and that of our own; how we share vulnerabilities and must grow and change with time to best suit our environment.

This show features the quintet with Dan on sax, flute and spoken word along with Alex on tenor sax, Torin Davies (Soweto Kinch) on guitar, Josh Vadiveloo (Xhosa Cole, Soweto Kinch, Jean Toussaint) on bass and Jonno Gaze (Deepa Shakti, Germa Adan) on drums.