Soundbox Ensemble

Soundbox Ensemble is my brand new duo project with the fantastic harpist Valeria Clarke (né Kurbatova).

Here we are at our first full gig, as part of the Nest Collective’s Magpie’s Nest festival in November 2022. There’s blurb about the project underneath.

Lots more coming up with this project, including an EP and some festival appearances later in 2023.

Here’s the blurb:

Soundbox Ensemble is a new collaboration between trumpeter/composer Steve Pretty and harpist Valeria Clarke (né Kurbatova).

Steve and Valeria first met whilst performing instrumental hip hop with producer Last Skeptik, and their collaborations since have been similarly eclectic. Performing as a duo, occasionally joined by a small army of musical robots, they were the house band for Robin Ince’s Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious people at the Lowry, Salford in 2019. Following this, Valeria was featured in Steve’s piece Fluoresce for the Sea Shambles event for the Royal Albert Hall at Home series in 2020, which featured underwater recordings, conch shells and electronics.

But it was after Steve invited Valeria to collaborate on his monthly residency at the Natural History Museum in 2022 that they decided to turn their occasional quirky collaborations into something more defined.

Taking inspiration from the name of the project, Steve and Valeria conjure an enormous variety of sounds from their various ’soundboxes’ - harp, trumpet, percussion, tenor horn, voice and esoteric electronics.  Their music draws influences from the likes of Jon Hassell, Debussy, Reich, Bjork, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Arve Henriksen,  and Hariprasad Chaurasia. The result is a collage of sound that veers from the delicately melodic to the broodingly atmospheric, the audience never quite knowing what is the sound of the raw acoustic instrument, and what is an expertly processed electronic manipulation of that sound.

Steve is best known for his work as bandleader of Hackney Colliery Band (‘one of the greatest live bands that we have in this country’ – BBC Radio 2), a band known for its bombast and energy. But here he focuses on the more introspective, delicate side of his composition and playing, combining feathery trumpet textures and extended techniques with the lyricism and showmanship that has earned him a reputation as a go-to trumpet player and musical director for Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre, as well as work with countless artists including Angélique Kidjo, Mulatu Astatke, The Cure and Paul McCartney. His electronic manipulation of the live acoustic instruments is sometimes subtle, blurring the lines between acoustic live playing and augmentation, and sometimes dramatic, producing billowing clouds of notes and unusual sonic textures that allow two musicians to sound like hundreds.

Valeria Clarke has performed as a soloist and with her chamber music groups across the world and has won numerous awards and scholarships, notably a full ABRSM scholarship to support her studies at the Royal College of Music in London. She is a principle harpist of the London Electronic Orchestra and a member of London Contemporary Orchestra. She frequently records for labels such as Decca and AMF records.