World United Music: Emily Burridge

About: Emily Burridge

Emily Burridge is a 'cellist and composer, performer and producer with creative flair.

In her acclaimed solo performance "Bach, Burridge & Into the Amazon" she brings together her classical foundations with modern sampling technology and through using looping pedals controlled with her feet she creates " vibrant and alluring" multi tracked compositions live. All of which are included on her fourth CD release "Out of the Blue & Into the Amazon"

Born in the UK Emily was classically trained from the age of five and was awarded a scholarship to the specialist music school Wells Cathedral School and a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where she was further awarded the Helen Just concerto prize.

She considers herself extremely fortunate to have learnt with some of the best 'cello teachers; Raphael Wallfisch, Amarylis Fleming and on leaving the RCM she furthered her studies with William Pleeth.

Although over the years she has carved a niche and developed a reputation for working outside of the usual association with the ‘cello as a classical instrument, she benefited greatly from an intensive and solid grounding in the classical repertoire and her career has included working within orchestras, chamber groups and solo recitals performing in all the main London concert halls.

From a young age she displayed a talent for improvising as well as reading the notes and her ability to improvise has expanded her career as a professional 'cellist. As a session musician, either reading an arrangement or creating one, she has contributed to hundreds of recordings playing with the stars of our time as well as lesser known individuals and groups, film scores and advertisements.

The country Brazil and it's tribal cultures is featured in Emily's musical compositions.

Her expansive relationship with the country commenced with a holiday in 1990 and she has converted that landscape and her personal experience into various musical productions.

In 1992 she was invited to perform at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro and as a result of her performance encountered elders of a tribe called the Xavante, indigenous to the Mato Grosso. An intrepid traveller, and in accepting their invitation to visit a Xavante village she travelled alone off the beaten track and was guest with a chief and his family in a traditional Xavante dwelling.

In 1995 as a result of this first visit she founded the registered charity "Indigenous People's Cultural Support Trust" no 1050461. Charitable donations and a match funding grant allocated by the British Government overseas development aid enabled her to work in collaboration with a Xavante chief and community and Emily over saw in Brazil the setting up of a solar powered health center, medicinal gardens and funded a Xavante tribes man on a university course.

When in town she was travelling around on $1.00 moped taxi service while she arranged contracts with local firms and then would take a five hour bus ride from the town to the Xavante reservation and stay in a palm hut.

Her association with the Xavante was furthered due to their tradition of singing in groups and "choirs" and on the numerous occasions that she was staying with the tribe she was invited to record. She also made location recordings of their environment.

These recordings (below) and the experience of this time is shared through musical productions including her solo performance "Into the Amazon" which has a backing track featuring some of these recordings and is accompanied by seventy five projected images of daily life in a Xavante Indian village.

The performance is particularly poignant in the light of global warming, climate change and the development of Brazil at the expense of the loss of a lot of their natural landscape. Where Emily stayed between ‘94 and ‘98 outside of the Xavante reservation is now a mono culture of soya for thousands of kilometers and the dawn chorus that Emily recorded has been massively diminished.

Emily's photos of the Xavante are on a resident display at the "Living Rainforest" center in Berkshire, UK.

She has produced four of her own CDs:

"In the hands of Emily Burridge, this instrument becomes a voice for her personal experiences, her emotions, and her thoughts as she amalgamates a variety of rhythms, sounds, backing performers, and instruments."

"Earth Songs" - published by a German independent in 1994

"Footsteps in the Sand" - was produced after having been awarded a cultural grant which enabled Emily to research folk music in the North East of Brazil and employ Brazilian musicians.

"Bridge between Worlds" - an orchestral work that features the Xavante traditional songs.

"In her compositions, Emily is capable of gathering, in a truly spontaneous way, elements derived from her Classical upbringing, together with those coming from the ethnic musics she has lived with."

"Out of the Blue & Into the Amazon" - double CD production 2010

"dare to venture into a realm of beautiful sometimes haunting cello playing..."

Extracts of music from all her CD productions is used for film and documentary sound tracks.

With her improvisational and arranging skills she loves to explore new repertoire and this is currently realized in her collaboration with the renowned Pedal Steel guitarist BJ Cole and together they have created an eclectic concert program of music including the piano Gnossiennes by Eric Satie.

"Music is not meant to be static, real music takes flight; it is an expression both within and outside time. Few musicians appreciate this as much as BJ Cole and Emily Burridge. When they perform established pieces of music they don't just recite them; their interpretations have the all important extras: poignancy, conviction and weight. Their delicate but powerful duets carry emotions that haunt you. They play with poise enough to take your breath, stop time and speak to you directly."

Library Music

As a composer she is inspired by nature and global events that emotionally move her and this is evident in her CD productions and even in the composition of library music in which the imagery of global events makes her play in musical styles reminiscent of diverse parts of the world.

Song Writing

In 2011 she started song writing in collaboration with the lyricist Scott English and in doing so has returned to the tradition of manuscript paper and pencil and composes at the piano.

However it is the ‘cello which is Emily’s main tool of musical expression and not content to just interpret the traditional classical works she will continue to seek out and explore and share through musical performance and recordings the experiences of her encounters.

BJ Cole & Emily Burridge:

"Music is not meant to be static, real music takes flight; it is an expression both within and outside time. Few musicians appreciate this as much as BJ Cole and Emily Burridge. When they perform established pieces of music they don't just recite them; their interpretations have the all important extras: poignancy, conviction and weight. Their delicate but powerful duets carry emotions that haunt you. They play with poise enough to take your breath, stop time and speak to you directly."

She delights in performing and recognizes the art of performance as an important role of being a musician. She entertains audiences alike in concert halls, churches, museums, intimate venues of UK rural touring, arboretums and parks, festivals and the ever increasingly popular house concerts.

Contact: admin@emilyburridge.com

For sales enquiries please e-mail: sales@emilyburridge.com

For correspondence please use this address:

Emily Burridge.com
PO Box 150
Shaftesbury,
Dorset.
SP7 7AL UK

Update Jan 12, 2014:

Emily Burridge is currently working together with Felix Gibbons on a project to form “Incandescendo”
For more Information on Incandescendo visit the following links:

Emily Burridge & Felix Gibbons - Incandescendo

http://www.incandescendo.com/

Contact: contact@incandescendo.com