PATRICK BRITTON TRIO (The Netherlands) – Debut

Patrick Britton, pianist and arranger living in the Netherlands, is returning to his home city of Melbourne to perform and catch up with the scene after beginning his masters degree in composition. Travelling through Europe and visiting New York a few times has had a massive impact on his musical output, and he’s bringing along old friends Matt Dooley and Ben Cooke to the Jazzlab as a part of the MJC to experiment with his tunes. His music is organised, and thoughtful. Each note pays tribute to the one before, and the one after – each piece armed with a concept to deliver to the audience.

Patrick began playing saxophone at the age of 12, and after two years of lessons decided he wanted to learn piano too. He was self-taught for 4 years, after being accepted for both saxophone and piano at the VCA, Patrick decided piano was his calling. He studied with Andrea Keller and Barney McAll, then completed his honours study in textual adaptation in big band composition under the mentorship of Vardan Ovsepian and Tim Davies. He got the call to work at David Jones on Bourke St, playing solo piano for over a year, 6 hour sets without a single chart to read from, working on his repertoire. Saving up, he blasted off to the Netherlands to study a masters in composition with Jesse Passenier, almost entirely focusing on symphonic composition and arranging. Since then he’s regularly sat in on the WDR big band rehearsals, meeting and listening to a huge variety of performers and arrangers such as Aaron Parks, Christian Elsasser, Jim McNeely, Bob Mintzer, Vince Mendoza, and others. Being able to consistently surround himself with world-class musicians has allowed Patrick to begin down the road of creating his sonic image. Currently he is inspired by the research of lecturer and clinical psychiatrist Louis Sass, himself experimenting with the possibility of abstracting compositional tools from the schizophrenic experience, under the mentorship of Janning Truman and Doug Weiss.

Personnel is
Patrick Britton (piano)
Ben Cooke (bass)
Matt Dooley (Drums)