Django Bates

Django Bates (born October 2, 1960), is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. Django Bates was born in Beckenham, Kent, United Kingdom. He rose to prominence in Loose Tubes, a jazz orchestra which was considered one of the UK's most exciting and inspirational groups of the 1980s. He founded his small group Human Chain in 1979. In 1991, he started his own 19-piece jazz orchestra Deligh... more

Django Bates (born October 2, 1960), is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. Django Bates was born in Beckenham, Kent, United Kingdom. He rose to prominence in Loose Tubes, a jazz orchestra which was considered one of the UK's most exciting and inspirational groups of the 1980s. He founded his small group Human Chain in 1979. In 1991, he started his own 19-piece jazz orchestra Delightful Precipice. He also put together the Powder Room Collapse Orchestra, which recorded Music for the Third Policeman, and created Circus Umbilicus, a musical circus show. In recent years, Bates has concentrated on writing large scale compositions on commission (see list below). These include Dream Kitchen for percussionist Evelyn Glennie, Fine Frenzy for the Shobhana Jeyasingh Dance Company, and a piano concerto for Joanna MacGregor and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra entitled What It's Like to be Alive. He also wrote the first ever concerto... less