Dr Pete Furniss

Pete has performed internationally across a variety of genres, including orchestral and chamber music, a wide variety of contemporary and electronic musics, free improvisation and improvised theatre.

His PhD in Creative Practice focused on bringing electronics and digital technology alongside the practice of traditional instruments, and was supported by an award from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). He’s presented related performances and papers at conferences in Lisbon, Athens, Seoul, Amsterdam (STEIM), the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, the Universities of Sussex, Sheffield, and Manchester, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and the Barbican Centre.

Solo recordings include Time Pieces (2007, Clarinet Classics) and Mendelssohn’s pieces for clarinet and basset horn with Dimitri Ashkenazy (1994, Pan Classics). In 2015 he released Bitter Together (Fabrikant Records) with guitarist Haftor Medbøe, a set of improvisations using analogue and digital electronics. A forthcoming CD Clarinetronics (Clarinet Classics) is set for release in 2019, as well as more collaborations, and an album dedicated to Martin Parker’s immersive software environment gruntCount.

Research Interests

Performance as research (PaR), embodiment, creative practice, augmented instruments, mixed music, liveness, HCI, improvisation, instrumentality, music performance, philosophy of mind, pedagogy.