Being less conventional - insights from a Horizon Artist

Bass clarinettist and DEBUT Horizon artist Hannah Shilvock discusses arranging music, breakfast food, and her life with the bass clarinet.

“I also wanted something that would focus my energy outside of music.”

Hannah is performing at our upcoming Secret Concert on 13th August.

Bass Clarinettist Hannah Shilvock is a DEBUT Horizon artist.

Hannah talks about the music that inspires her, what it’s like to create new music with the bass clarinet, and offers some lifestyle inspiration for London.

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Upcoming projects?

“More recently, I'm working on a set of Scottish folksongs for bass clarinet and cor anglais.”

Hannah enjoys playing in interesting spaces, and has organised an album launch at Patchworks in Leyton.

“I started doing yoga at Trinity Laban because the college has a dance school too.”

The bass clarinet

I started the clarinet at my school in Somerset, and there wasn’t a massive department. The other clarinettist in the orchestra rented a bass clarinet, and I started to explore too - what it sounded like and what it could do.

After grade 8 clarinet, I rented a bass clarinet - it was an outlet for being creative in new ways, and I was really lucky that when I started my first degree, the university department gave me specialist lessons.

What is it about Debussy?

I started off as a pianist, and Clair de lune was one of the earliest piano pieces I remember - almost everyone wants to learn that piece, and I idolised it. Debussy opened up this massive sound world that I loved.

Being less conventional 

Working on less conventional music can make you creative in new ways. I started writing and publishing arrangements for bass clarinet, starting with Debussy’s cello suite.

Things are less set in stone, and It feels like there’s more ‘space’ to create something new.

Outside of performing?

I’m developing a ‘basics for bass clarinet’ online course.

A huge chunk of my Instagram followers are young students, interested in bass clarinet but who don’t have much access to training and the technique is very new and unfamiliar to them.

I’m also regularly creating my own arrangements of existing works for bass clarinet.

Weirdest performances

I’ve done lots of very strange gigs. In my first year of undergrad, I ended up playing basset horn (basically, an old fashioned clarinet) for a contemporary remix based on Mozart’s requiem. 

…and as a postgraduate at Trinity Laban, I was in a group of 12 bass clarinets that played an arrangement of Bohemian Rhapsody at an Italian festival.

Alongside music 

I’m massively into yoga. I work at a Yoga studio, and i’m starting training as an instructor in October.

I started doing yoga at Trinity Laban because they had yoga classes at the dance school there, and it really worked for me.

I did taekwondo before, and yoga is a lot less high-impact, with a similar focus.

Follow Hannah on Instagram

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