Hilary Seabrook - writer, podcaster, musician

If the New Year is leaving you wanting to find new music, I may have found somewhere for you to start. There is a mesmeric quality to Scottish saxophonist Phil Bancroft's new album: 'Finding Hope (When All Seems Lost)', combining as it does guitarist Graeme Stephen and table master Gyan Singh. This debut album from Bancroft's new trio - The Beautiful Storm - is out now on his own Myriad Streams platform. Taking influences from a multitude of sources, this is a brilliant album, recorded and mixed in a home studio but with a stunning sound and exciting rhythms and combinations of these three exceptional performers. Bancroft says: "This album breaks new ground for me, in multiple ways. It comes at the end of fourteen years of study with a new approach to learning and practising, opening up a whole new concept of rhythmic structure, a new approach to composition and improvisation. This is the first album to present these findings to the world.” During the recording and...

Happy New Year! Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, in which I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious. This first episode of season 19 features a conversation with saxophonist and composer  Emma Rawicz , who I saw twice at the end of 2024 - once with her own band at  Kings Place  and once at  Ronnie Scott's with Laila Biali  (who you can also hear on  episode 246 ). It was great to chat with Emma about her experiences as a musician and also about her forthcoming projects, particularly a duo with pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock. More of that to come! Thanks to Emma for giving me permission to play extracts from her 2023 album Chroma alongside our conversation. Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show and receive some great freebies! Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a ...

Wishing you all a fabulous 2025. Check out some of these venues and events below, especially those featuring past guests on the Harmonious World podcast: Sunday 12th January 2025: Soul Mama, Gantry Hotel, 40 Celebration Ave, Stratford E20 1DB Coltrane and Hartman on Impulse! feat. Denys Baptiste and Marvin Muoneke. Revisiting the famous album when John Coltrane teamed up with vocalist Johnny Hartman to explore their favourite romantic standards, tenor sax boss Denys Baptiste is joined by the extraordinary vocalist Marvin Muoneke and a top-flight rhythm section of Gary Crosby (bass), Alex Webb (piano) and Noah Ojumu (drums). Click here for tickets & info Friday 10 January 2025: Soul Mama, Gantry Hotel, 40 Celebration Avenue, Stratford E20 1DB Down for the Count presents their Swing That Music show. Click here for tickets & info Saturday 18th January 2025: Soul Mama, Gantry Hotel, 40 Celebration Ave, Stratford E20 1DB Ineza & ‘Women’s Words, Sisters’ Stories’ comes to Yoland...