Cast member profile: Chris Cundy

Chris is a bass clarinettist and saxophonist in NoFit State Circus’s live band. His approach encompasses a highly eclectic range of genres from experimental and free improvisation through to pop music and even circus performance.

Starting out as a street busker in his teens, he quickly discovered a fascination for experimental music. By the late 1990s he began playing Hugh Metcalfe’s legendary Klinker Club – home to alternative cabaret, DIY cinema and free jazz in North London. Chris has maintained an enduring presence on the UK’s underground music scene ever since, appearing at festivals such as Venn and Supersonic. Since 2010, Cheltenham Jazz Festival has invited him as guest curator, co-hosting their Freehouse events with comedian and music fan, Stewart Lee. In 2011, Chris was nominated for Serious Music’s Take Five Award for contemporary jazz.

Since 2004 he has worked with pop group Guillemots, making television appearances on Top of the Pops and the Mercury Music Awards. He has toured with them internationally and supported acts such as Rufus Wainwright and Scissor Sisters. He continues to work closely with lead singer Fyfe Dangerfield and appears on his 2010 solo album, Fly Yellow Moon. The pair
recently appeared at the London Jazz Festival with fusion group Gannets,
having recorded a full-length live session for BBC Radio 3.

Chris recently composed his first film score, in collaboration with electronics outfit Longstone, for Osbert Parker’s BAFTA-nominated animation Film Noir, commissioned by Future Shorts Cinema.

Since 2010 he has been working with NoFit State Circus, performing music in Europe and Canada for their award-winning show Tabu.

Q and A

What is your proudest achievement?
Collecting recordings of distant lightning storms in the Earth’s ionosphere from the top of a Welsh mountain.

What do you enjoy most about performing?
The unpredictability in the spur of the moment.

What is your greatest fear?
Scales and arpeggios.

What was your most memorable performance?
Performing experimental jazz during a ten-pin bowling tournament at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes.

Who do you most admire?
Eric Dolphy – he was a bass clarinettist who fell in love with a ballet dancer.

What are you looking forward to about performing at Eden?
Hiding in the undergrowth, singing to giant snails like Christopher Lee does in The Wicker Man, and cultivating rare breeds of moss inside my clarinet bell.

Video

Links

• Chris Cundy's Myspace page
• Gannets' Myspace page