Biography
The composer, classical guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Neil Campbell has followed a number of seemingly divergent musical paths throughout his career including free improviser, singer songwriter, systems music composer, band leader and virtuoso guitar soloist. In 1998 he simultaneously became involved with the free improvisation scene and the acoustic scene in Liverpool. Around this time he also began postgraduate studies in Musical Composition through the University of Liverpool.
Through his MA studies he developed an approach to music making based around musical systems or processes which run automatically without ‘composerly’ intervention. The albums documenting this work are ‘Rotations’ (2003) and the 3 CD set ‘Assembly’ (2005). Much of this music has received airplay on BBC Radio 3′s Late Junction programme and music from ‘Assembly’ has recently been featured in Prof Kyle Gann’s Listening List of minimal, postminimal and totalist music for his Composition students at Bard College, New York. Neil’s work in the area of minimalist and systems music continues with a large-scale collaboration (‘Inventioning’) with Jon Anderson (leader of the progressive rock band Yes) and Sense of Sound Singers, and with the development of a 50 minute long suite ‘The Path’, based on Herman Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’, which is awaiting CD release.
From around 2004 Neil poured his activities as a composer, songwriter and performer into work with the Neil Campbell Collective (NCC), a group whose members have variously included Mark Brocklesby (drums), Nicole Collarbone (cello), Anne Taft (vocals) and Andy Maslivec (bass) along with several other guests over the years. The NCC produced two critically acclaimed progressive rock albums, ‘Three O’Clock Sky’ (2005) and ‘Particle Theory’ (2008). In 2009 they worked on a large scale multimedia project ‘Frankenstein’. This was a 60 minute long composition for rock band and choir composed by Neil and based on Mary Shelley’s classic novel. It was first performed at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall Concert Room in October 2009 with Sense of Sound Singers and with visual projections by Valeria Di Matteo and George Jones. It was later reprised at BBC Radio Merseyside in a live recorded broadcast featuring actor Gary Mavers as narrator in May 2010. It is yet to be recorded and released on CD.
‘Ghost Stories’ (2008), a collaboration with soprano Anne Taft and electro-acoustic musician Michael Beiert, received excellent critical notices from reviewers. This music was performed at St Lukes (Bombed Out) Church, Liverpool in June 2009 in a spectacular outdoor concert with surround sound and visual projections. Later that year Neil and Anne performed the piece at Birkenhead Priory as part of The International Guitar Festival of Great Britain.
After thirty years as a guitarist, Neil has produced two CDs of solo guitar music ‘Through the Looking Glass’ (Mayfield 2003) and ‘Night Sketches’ (2004) and a book of Music for Solo Guitar. His solo performances are the stuff of legend and see him using loops and other technology to expand the sound and scope of what one performer can do with the classical guitar. In February 2010 he performed two solo concerts (with special guests) at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre, following on from two solo concerts at RAI Palermo and in Catania (Sicily) in Dec 2009.
Neil has also recorded, with cellist Nicole Collarbone, a CD of Music for Cello and Guitar (‘Fall’ (2006)) which they performed in Berlin in 2006, and an album of songs in collaboration with Stuart Todd, entitled ‘Campbell Todd’ (2007). He has collaborated across the miles with Sicilian composer and concert pianist Francesco Di Fiore on his HGW project; has contributed to sessions with the award-winning DJ Yousef; has performed live with Roopa Panesar, one of the UK’s best new sitar players; has performed improvised sets of electronic music with Neil Murphy (from experimental rock band Mugstar); has accompanied Liverpool singing sensations such as Connie Lush and Thomas Lang; and has written music for theatre and dance.
Since 2010 Neil has begun two major new collaborative projects, a song-writing collaboration with vocalist and composer Perri Alleyne-Hughes and a new post-rock concept band The Bulbs, featuring Joey Zeb (drums), Andy Maslivec (bass) and Marty Snape (electronics).