ABOUT

Mike Fletcher is a UK-based woodwind multi-instrumentalist, composer, writer, and researcher who works predominantly in the fields of jazz and improvised music. Whether it is as instrumentalist or composer – or more commonly both at once – his approach to making music prioritises spontaneous interactive dialogue between performers. 

 

As a performer-bandleader he has appeared at leading jazz venues and across the UK (EFG London Jazz Festival/Cheltenham Jazz Festival/Manchester Jazz Festival), Europe (Outono Em Jazz – Portugal, Jazz Goes To Town – Czech Republic) and internationally (Cambio S Festival – Brazil, IAJE Conference – Toronto). In 2015 he was nominated to tour Europe with a jazz trio featuring bassist Olie Brice and drummer Jeff Williams as part of the ECHO Rising Stars programme - with performances the Barbican Centre in London, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, BOZAR in Brussels, the Stockholm Konserthuset and Gulbenkian Centre in Lisbon. 

 

Silent Form - his most recent composition project - is a collaboration with the Kitchen Orchestra collective from Stavanger, Norway. Their first album will be released on Clean Feed records in spring 2024. His previous large ensemble project was a joint commission by Surge In Spring festival and Arts Council England to develop music from the solo project Picasso(s) into a suite for MFJO - a 13-piece improvising orchestra. This music was premiered at the 2019 edition of the festival and was subsequently performed by a specially formed ensemble of leading Spanish musicians in February 2023. In 2013 he was commissioned by Jazzlines Birmingham to write a suite of music for the Reich:Influences festival. In April 2016 Mike was involved in a joint Birmingham Symphony Hall commission with composer Anna Meredith to create a cross-genre large ensemble performance. In summer 2017 he was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to write and direct the music for the acclaimed production of Dido, Queen of Carthage. 

 

He has written music for soloists including saxophonists Lee Konitz and Andrew D’Angelo, and drummer Dan Weiss. He has also worked as director in residence for big bands in Coimbra, Portugal and Almeria, Spain.