Tom Arthurs

Trumpet, Composer

Tom Arthurs is a trumpeter and composer for the 21st century – drawing honestly and infinitely from a dizzying range of influences. His music-making represents a rare beauty and creative depth, and he cites inspiration from John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler and Jimmy Guiffre, African and South American traditional music, Berlin’s Echtzeitmusik scene, as well as György Ligeti, Luc Ferrari and Morton Feldman. Aside from music, Tarkovsky, Godard, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lau Tzu and Farid Ud-Din Attar remain deeply influential, as do cherished experiences of baroque music, the pygmies of Central Africa, Gal Costa, David Sylvian and Arto Lindsay.

Already by his mid-30s, news of Arthurs’ finesse, glowing sound and relentless creativity has spread far and wide, with New York City Jazz Record’s Thomas Conrad describing his playing as “continuously, beautifully unfamiliar”, and allaboutjazz’s John Kelman describing his improvisations as “simple but perfect”, demonstrating “an exacting perfection” and with “a harmon-muted tone that renders his playing as vulnerable as Miles Davis at his fragile best”.

Closer to home, Tom has been described as “a world-class improviser” by UK’s Jazzwise, “une révélation” by France’s Citizenjazz, and “der Glasbläser” (the glass-blower) by Germany’s SWR2.

Tom is currently Artistic Director of the Jazz and Contemporary Music department at Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland, and his main project is the Tom Arthurs Trio, with Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari and Berlin-based pianist Marc Schmolling. He is equally at home with enthrallingly touching solo performances, and a range of collective improvised projects – including GLUE, QUAIRÓS, Pedesis and duos with Isambard Khroustaliov and Simon Vincent. Arthurs has been awarded composition commissions from the BBC/RPS, City of London Festival, BBC Proms, the Elias Quartet and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and has worked with folk musicians including The Unthanks and James Yorkston, also contributing a sonic cameo to the BBC TV comedy series The Mighty Boosh.