Dean Brodrick

I was born in 1960 and I began playing piano aged 8½. The register of soprano was given to me in both church and school choirs. By age 13 I had organised my musical friends into a jazz big band to play my arrangements of soul and funk classics, I was writing music for the school play, and creating soundtracks to homemade super8 films.

I bid 1p in a school auction and won Miles Davis', album E.S.P. - my first vinyl. With an electronic wizard friend I broadcast my own and my favourite music on our pirate radio station, mixing Stravinsky with Stockhausen, Stan Tracy, Bach, Cage aka pygmies and Alex Harvey. At this time I began a relationship with an unwanted bassoon, and wrote songs in secret.

I met Nigerian drummer Morabo Morojele and played much bedroom jazz. Although I pursued a formal education in fine arts at Wimbledon and sacred geometry at the Royal College I was composing and arranging for diverse musical groups and projects. I helped to run the L.M.C. (London musicians collective), and a the annual festival "music for a summer day" in the 80s, I began playing drums and accordion and lead a multitude of experimental bands with unusual combinations of instruments, including:

Kabloona - Inuit throat singing with samplers,

Veronikas - Peruvian and Serbian folk brass band,

was it a car or a cat I saw - improvising world music orchestra specializing in Hockets.
big baffle - a modern jazz quartet
talking to plants -  a keyboard only group,
tortoises in heaven  - an Anglo Japanese gagaku orchestra,
fly, my swallow - a  gypsy jazz quintet,
sound circus - afro latin jazz septet with master percussionist Nana Tsiboe from Ghana,

dead frog - poetry setting duo,
ellintoons - sextet with drummer Steve Noble playing music of Duke Ellington,
wackyland - experimental folk punk orchestra,
eureka! -  grungy songs with euro jazz group and string quartet,
troy town - playing psychedelic ‘rembetika’ (Greek folk music).

During this period I also worked as a composer for film (Derek Jarman/Melanie Poole / Isao Yamada), for T.V. (BBC children’s programmes/public information films), for theatre (shared experience/the warp),for dance (Cholmondeleys and Featherstonehaughs/Sue Mclennan/Steve Paxman/ Laurie Booth/extemporary dance/experimental and African groups), for radio (BBC playtime/wdr West German radio big band/resonance fm), for schools (munster music academy/local schools) as a producer for él records (bad dream fancy dress/Louis Philippe/King of Luxemburg/Anthony Adverse/Yoshié) and as a member of numerous bands (jah wobble/the go betweens/Joe Strummer/bez/ Charles Hayward/the moonflowers/accordions go crazy/Mark Hardy ensemble/Sandy Dillon band/Dave Powell's Kermesse/orchestra murphy/frank chickens/Lindsay Cooper/Phil Minton and Veryan Weston's natural love formations/Nigel Burch's flea pit orchestra/Steve Blake's victims of death/John Watts/Najma).

From the 90s I devoted myself to the study of music from the Brazilian Amazon. I formed a company (now called PooPcreative) with Chris Smallwood whose aim was and is to use music animation and comedy to promote awareness of water and sanitation issues. My band Empty Boat have toured extensively in Africa and forged strong links with Mocambiquan band Massukos who share similar aims.

I now live in Wiltshire, near my 2 daughters, betwixt crop circles streams and woodland, where I record, paint, garden, teach piano and general music, facilitate a toddlers play group, and do yoga.