H E A T H E R R Y A L L
Heather is a clarinettist and bass clarinettist based in London. She particularly enjoys cross-arts, collaborative work with composers, dancers and artists in other fields.
Heather is a London-based freelance clarinettist and bass clarinettist who likes immersing herself in sound. She enjoys experimenting with different colours on her instruments, trying new techniques and working in settings which allow her to respond to the world around her through improvisation; using contact mics to build closer sonic relationships with nature.
She completed a Junior Fellowship and the Orchestral Artistry Masters at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she was generously supported by Guildhall School of Music and Drama, The Zetland Foundation, The Leverhulme Trust, The Altrusa Careers Trust, The Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, The Women’s Career Foundation, and The Yorkshire Ladies’ Council of Education.
As a classical musician, Heather has performed works by Richard Rodney Bennett and Harrison Birtwistle for BBC Radio 3 and won the D’Addario Single Reed Prize (North London Music Festival). She has worked with Garsington Opera, Riot Ensemble, Dr K Sextet, BCMG, side-by-side with the LSO and with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields as an animateur. Due, in part to the Pandemic, she has performed in diverse settings such as Hallr Wood, Somerset, The Barbican, Wigmore Hall, King's Place, by the Lea in Olympic Park, Cadogan Hall, The Place Theatre, The Sage, Gateshead, Windsor Castle, Scadbury Park, the English Speaking Union (Dartmouth House) and Milton Court.
She is currently working side-by-side with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group as part of the NEXT Scheme and particularly enjoys playing contemporary and new music, improvising and collaborating with composers and has worked with Rebecca Saunders, Bernhard Gander, Harrison Birtwistle, Julian Anderson, Agata Zubel, Clara Iannota, Chaya Czernowin, Stevie Wishart, Sylvia Lim, Clare Elton, Nilufar Habibian and Torsten Herrmann. She is involved in various cross-arts collaborations and has been working with two artists on an immersive site-specific project in Jersey as well as writing music for a short film, ieau, to be released in November 2021.