Andi's CV
I was born in Birmingham in 1962 and grew up there. I lived in Manchester from 1980 to 2002; since 2002 I have lived in Sedbergh, Cumbria. I have a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics from Manchester University.
I run a small creative graphic design business focused on music and arts promotion, especially jazz and festivals, established in 1989. I started without formal training, but with access to sources of good advice. I worked with my brother from 1996 to 1998 and with my wife from late 2001 to early 2009, but I am back working solo while she concentrates on her painting. I have developed skills in photography and vector illustration which underpin most of my design and which I have further developed into self-directed work in the last few years.
I started in music playing bass guitar. I played in Those Who Celebrate (rock/free improvisation) and in Swirl (guitar band, later Bandit Queen) and promoted improvised music performance, partnerships and education in Manchester in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I wrote and performed MIDI-based dance and chillout music and helped organise club nights, chill-out spaces, DJs for local radio, semi-legal outdoor events etc. in the mid 1990s. I began DJing then and still do 2 or 3 gigs a year.
Performances
May 2011: commissioned to devise and present an Andi Chapple and Musicians project at the Music Department, UCLAN, Preston (composer)
February 2011: Solo performance on a bill with Colin Potter, Simon Whetham and Dominic Lash at South Hill Park arts centre, Bracknell, as part of Simon Whetham's Active Crossover project
June 2010: a new outdoor Andi Chapple and Musicians performance involving fiddlers, vocals, gong, a group of percussionists and the bell ringing team from Sedbergh Parish Church, commissioned by Sedbergh Music Festival (composer and performer)
September 2009: Andi Chapple and Musicians, Suspense – Does Not Conclude – (the third part of Three Spring Performances, setting the poetry of Emily Dickinson to Victorian hymn tunes), repeated for Sedbergh Festival of Books and Drama (composer and performer)
May and June 2009: Andi Chapple and Musicians, Three Spring Performances, funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, a series of site-specific works in a retired water mill, a small, tree-filled park and a small, retired church (fundraiser, composer, producer and performer)
December 2008: Andi Chapple and Musicians, In The Sparkly Dark, an ‘alternative Christmas show’ including carols, electronic music, spoken-word drama by a local writer and a slowly-changing, pure-colour lighting design (composer and performer)
June 2008: Andi Chapple and Musicians, Sounds in a Wood, an acoustic performance in a small wood on a riverbank near Sedbergh, for Sedbergh Music Festival (composer and performer)
September 2007: Descant on Rawthey’s Madrigal, based on the poetry of Basil Bunting, for reader, archive recording and live electronics, commissioned by Sedbergh Festival of Books and Drama with support from the PRS Foundation (composer and performer)Other sound work
November 2010: sound piece Call and Response broadcast on CKDU FM in Halifax, Nova Scotia as part of an annual programme curated by the Centre for Art Tapes, Halifax
October 2010: a series of soundwalks at the Huddersfield Arts Festival Warehouse Weekend
July 2010: electro-acoustic pieces K197 and Tonic included on 'sound stations' in St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, Ireland as part of Sonic Vigil V
Installations
June 2010: A Month of Sundays, eight-channel computer-controlled sound and large-format screen prints, in St. Andrew's Church, Sedbergh as part of the 2010 Sedbergh Music Festival
July 2008: 'Each Pebble Its Part', The Basement, Brighton, as part of the Sonic Arts Network’s EXPO Festival
June 2008: ‘Each Pebble Its Part’, photography, computer-controlled interactive sculpture and environmental sound recordings, Ephemeral House, Sedbergh, commissioned by Ephemeral House with support from Arts Council England
Exhibitions
November 2010 – June 2011: new photographic images at Duo cafe, Sedbergh which use a 'time-slice' technique to show the passing of time within a static image; images from Rawthey Banks at Farfield Mill Arts & Heritage Centre, Sedbergh
Summer and autumn 2010: images from Rawthey Banks at Duo cafe, Sedbergh
September 2009 to January 2010: Rawthey Banks, the images from 'Each Pebble Its Part' with some new ones, the Cafe in the Forest, Grizedale (programmed by Kendal Brewery Arts Centre)
Residency
October 2009 – April 2010: screenprinting at the University of Cumbria's Lancaster art department as part of the AA2A scheme, including the prints in A Month Of Sundays
I gave a well-attended multi-media talk on my development and practice in spring 2010 as part of my AA2A involvement
Other
2010: programmed a strand of electronic music concerts for Sedbergh Music Festival
2010: invited to exhibit at the 8th Salon des arts Berry-Touraine in Luçay-le-Mâle (Indre, France) but could not raise the money to travel to be present at the exhibition, a condition of the invitation
February 2010: shortlisted for an internship at Grizedale Arts (but not picked)
2008: helped programme talks on consciousness and neuroscience for Sedbergh Festival of Ideas
2002 – present: studied taiji/t’ai chi and qi gong/chi kung, began teaching 2006
Early 2000s: reviewer for Wire magazine; music editor for Manchester-based style magazine Flux
Future plans – definite
Spring 2011: Curating and assembling an edition of the Framework : Afield radio/internet programme
April 2012: 'Andi Chapple and Musicians' project at South Hill Park arts centre, Bracknell as part of the exhibition 'At Play 4'