Music in Progress. Mike Westbrook – jazz composer - ACE075.2

Brass band playing music (by Anthony Holborne) from the Holborne Suite (1599). Mike Westbrook at home. Plays piano which he says is "the place where all [his] music starts…", and describes how improvisation at the piano is how he arrives at ideas for themes and orchestration. He is currently working on a setting of a William Blake poem, The Fields of Islington. Recording orchestrated version of The Fields. Westbrook’s VO talks about working with a regular small group, augmented on this occasion; though he likes having more musicians, he worries about using big band orchestration too much.