Draft:Ensemble Bash

• Comment: Please check out some other chamber music ensemble articles to get a better sense of how to format the page and outline the group. Remove the YouTube links from the list of commissions, and remove the lists of concerts and performances. Why? I Ask (talk) 01:22, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

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Ensemble Bash is a British percussion ensemble, founded in 1990.

Ensemble Bash's formation was after Richard Benjafield's study in Ghana of traditional Ewe and Ashanti drumming and Dagari gyil (xylophone) music. This was at the Institute of African Studies, with musicians Afadina Atsikpa and Bernard Woma of the Ghana Dance Ensemble, at the University of Ghana, in Legon, Accra, Ghana, where the composer Steve Reich studied before he wrote his work Drumming.

Membership

Founding members were Richard Benjafield, Chris Brannick, Stephen Hiscock and Andrew Martin.

In 2000, Richard Benjafield left the group, replaced by Joby Burgess, a former student of Benjafield's at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2007 Genevieve Wilkins joined the group, following the departure of Andrew Martin. In 2017 both Burgess and Wilkins left to focus on individual pursuits. This resulted in Richard Benjafield re-joining the group. The new fourth member of the quartet was Catherine Ring, who had performed with Ensemble Bash several times since 2012. Catherine left the group in July 2024, at which point Ensemble Bash became a trio. In September 2024 the Ensemble Bash Apprentice Artist scheme was launched, in partnership with Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The first participants in the scheme were Will Miles and Engin Eskici.

History 1990-1995

The quartet first met in 1990, rehearsing in Chertsey, Surrey. The group later made the Music Workshop in Tottenham, north London, their main rehearsal base for the next ten years.

The group had two early public appearances on TV, and a BBC programme filmed at Kew Bridge Steam Museum in the autumn of 1991, and in 1992 the pilot episode of Hangar 17, an ITV children's show. An audition for London's Park Lane Group concert series gave Ensemble Bash their London debut concert, at the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, in January 1992.

Their debut concert, on Monday 6th January 1992, featured two new works, co-commissioned by the PLG and their impresario John Woolf, Hook by Graham Fitkin, and Urban Blues by David Osbon. John Cage's Third Construction and an arrangement of Agbekor, Ghanaian war drumming from Benjafield's studies in Ghana, completed the programme for this debut concert.

Two more concerts followed, at Brighton Music Festival in May, and at London's ICA on 4th July, in the Platform 2 series curated by Joanna MacGregor

The group then recorded Hook for Decca (Argo) in July at CTS Studios in Wembley, released on CD later that year, entitled Hook-Mesh-Stub-Cud, also featuring the John Harle Band and the Delta Saxophone Quartet.

Over 1993 and 1994, Ensemble Bash began to tour the UK, including concerts at Brighton Music Festival, Joanna MacGregor's Platform One series at London's ICA, Gordonstoun School, Royal Northern College of Music, and music societies across the country. Educational works became a feature of concerts, especially at schools and festivals.

The album Slapstick, Whipcrack, Thundersheet was recorded in 1994, the group's debut album, on CD. Recorded in analogue 4-track at London's Depot Studios in King's Cross, it was engineered and produced by Geoff Hilton, who had first worked with the group when they were rehearsing for their early TV appearances. The tracks featured a nod to their early Ghanaian inspirations, the classics Second Construction by John Cage and Marimba Spiritual by Minoru Miki, a new work by Stephen McNeff, Flirt Your Tail and Spin!, and music from the group's growing concert repertoire. Much of the album was featured on their BT / NFMS tour in 1995.

The group's growing presence resulted in two major breakthroughs in 1995. They were approached by Martyn Harry to sign for Sony Classical, who were then signing many contemporary classical music acts following the commercial successes of Henryk Gorecki and John Taverner. Alongside, this Ensemble Bash undertook a 25-date Making More of Music tour of the UK for the National Federation of Music Societies. The tour reached music societies and schools across the country, from Devon to Musselburgh, Belfast to Lowestoft. and BT commissioned Stewart Copeland's The Gene Pool for the concerts.

Sony Classical - Launch 1995 - 1996

The CD Launch was recorded in April 1995 at London's Air Studios, produced by Martin Harry. Recorded in 24-bit stereo, the album features eight tracks, five of which were commissioned for the album.

New commissions were:

Shaken not Stirred - Michael Daugherty (Park Lane Group and London Arts Board)

The Gene Pool - Stewart Copeland (British Telecom)

Shiftwork - Howard Skempton (London Arts Board)

Suite d'Lorenzo - Orphy Robinson (London Arts Board)

Shining Through - Nick Hayes (Rainbow over Bath Festival)

Dash Me Something, written by Richard Benjafield after his studies in Ghana in 1990, and Apple Blossom by Peter Garland, were re-recorded (in digital high-tech 24-bit sound) from the group's debut 1994 album, Slapstick, Whipcrack, Thundersheet. The closing track was the group's arrangement, made with the Ghanaian musician Paulinus Bozie, of the Senegalese drumming Kumpo.

The album was released in May 1996, worldwide.

Stewart Copeland

For Ensemble Bash's CD Launch, recorded in 1995 at London's Air Studios, Stewart Copeland, drummer of rock band The Police and composer of many film scores, was commissioned to write a new work. This was The Gene Pool. The recording was released in 1996

Ensemble Bash subsequently performed the work with Stewart Copeland in Italy in 2004, in a quintet version arranged by Chris Brannick, featuring Copeland on drumset. A performance was featured on the album Orchestralli. Copeland composed another work for Ensemble Bash in 2002, Breather, for their 20th anniversary CD A Doll's House and tour.

History 1996 to 2000

Between 1996 and 2000, Ensemble Bash enjoyed a long-term creative collaborative partnership with two musical organisations in Ghana, the National Dance Ensemble of Ghana (now the Ghana Dance Ensemble), led by the Director of Ghana's National Theatre Francis Nii-Yartey, and the Pan African Orchestra, Artistic Director Nana Danso Abiam. These visits were funded by the British Council. In 1996 Ensemble Bash studied with musicians from both ensembles at the National Theatre. They gave concerts together in Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast .the musicians on the tour included Afadina Atskipa, Thomas Segkura, Emmanuel Osei Awuku, Ibrahim Abukari.

As a result of this collaboration, four Ghanaian master musicians joined Ensemble Bash in 1997, for an extensive tour of the UK, sponsored by the Arts Council Contemporary Music Network. They were joined by Francis Nii-Yartey for a programme of music devised especially for the performances. between June 17th and 25th, the eight musicians performed at Christ Church Spitalfields in London, Birmingham Midlands Arts Centre, Leicester Phoenix Arts Centre, Oxford Playhouse, Shrewsbury Music Hall, and Torrington Arts Centre in Devon.

On 29th June Ensemble Bash performed at one of the concerts to mark the handover ceremonies, taking place that night of Hong Kong from the UK to China. This was a notable collaborative concert with Island Sun Drum, and the Hong Kong Percussion Group, directed by Lung Heung-wing and Leung Lai-wa.

23rd July 1997 also saw the group make its debut at the BBC Proms, also broadcast on BBC Radio 3, with pianist Joanna MacGregor. The programme included the London premiere of The Catering Trade, composed by jazz musician Django Bates, as well as ;pieces by Steve Reich, Orphy Robinson, and arrangements of Ghanaian music by Thomas Segkura and Paulinus Bozie.

In 2000, the 1997 CMN tour project was revived, promoted independently by the group, for another six concerts with Afadina Atskipa, Thomas Segkura, Emmanuel Osei Awuku, Ibrahim Abukari, entitled the Master Musicians of Ghana tour.

History 2001 to 2007

In 2002-2003 the group celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first concert, with a ten-date national tour entitled drumgods. Venues included Symphony Hall, Birmingham and London's Spitalfields Festival in June 2003

The collaboration with Stewart Copeland continued with four tours to Italy between 2002 and 2005, in the Orchestralli project. Artists appearing alongside Copeland and Ensemble Bash included Radiodervish, Joanna MacGregor, Oficina Zöe, Ensemble Notte della Taranta, midi saxophonist Amadeo Bianchi, Raiz, and Orchestra Ueca (United European Culture Association) directed by Robert Ziegler. The Orchestralli CD and DVD recordings were realised in

in 2004 the Light & Shade tour with Joanna MacGregor and Britten Sinfonia was accompanied by a CD Neural Circuits, which featured composer Nithin Sawhney, cellist Chistopher van Kampen, tabla player Aref Durvesh, and conductor Cameron Sinclair.

A major concert in 2005 at the Rhythm Sticks festival at London's South Bank Centre featured a collaboration with the legendary Brazilian Nana Vasconcelos, and also the violinist Madeleine Mitchell, in to folk song arrangements, Mopti Street from Mali, re-composed by Simon Limbrick, and Kotetchke from Turkey, arranged by Stuart Jones. The concert also marked the end of the group's long and happy partnership with the artist agency Hazard Chase.

Ensemble Bash returned to Australia for a concert on 21st October, at Melbourne International Arts Festival, in the On the Edge of Sunset : New Music from Around the World series. Their collaborative programme, which included ten students from Victorian College of the Arts Percussion Ensemble in the Senegalse drumming piece Kumpo, culminated in a performance of Stewart Copelands The Gene Pool, with percussionists Peter Neville and Eugene Ughetti of SPEAK percussion, and drummer/percussionist David Jones. Those players also premiered a new piece, Murmur Points, by Taran Carter.

Between 2005 and 2007, Fiddlesticks, an innovative creative collaboration with virtuoso violinist Madeleine Mitchell, resulted in several concerts, and a CD on Signum Records. The CD featured music by Lou Harrison - his Violin Concerto with Percussion Orchestra, and new works by Anne Dudley, Tarik O'Regan, Stuart Jones, Simon Limbrick. Roger Thomas wrote in BBC Music Magazine " ... it happily turns out to be my favourite contemporary music CD of 2007."

History 2007 - 2016

2006

March 19th Latin Bash at Lghthouse Arts Centre, Poole, with Elena Riu (piano) and Oi Brasil (Dan Priest, director)

2009

Harrison Birtwistle's For O, for O, the Hobby-Horse is Forgot at Bath International Music Festival - Happy Birthday Harry: Ritual and Theatre, with Bath Spa University. Guest percussionists included Catherine Ring.

2012

• Cage@100, King's Place, London
• BBC Proms, 29th August, with Imogen Heap (vocals), BBC Singers, Eric Whitacre Singers, and Eric Whitacre (conductor)

History 2017 - today

With the departures of Joby Burgess and Genevieve Wilkins in 2017, the group returned closer to its original formation when founder member Richard Benjafield returned to Ensemble Bash, joined by Catherine Ring. The first concert of the new line-up was at Cambridge Music Festival in November 2017. represented by the agency Bright Ivy until the Covid pandemic of 2020–2021.

New music commissioned by Ensemble Bash, 1992 to 2025

Urban Blues	David Osbon	1991
Hook	Graham Fitkin	1991
Agbekor	Traditional Ewe drumming, arr. Richard Benjafield, Afadina Tsikpa, Bernard Woma	1991
Dash Me Something	Traditional Ghanaian, arr. Bernard Woma, Richard Benjafield, Ensemble Bash	1992
Kumpo	Traditional Senegalese, arr. Paulinus Bozie & Ensemble Bash	1993
Drum Gods	Simon LImbrick	1993
Wali	Traditional music from Guinea, arr. Paulinus Bozie & Ensemble Bash	1993
Shiftwork	Howard Skempton	1994
Shining Through	Nick Hayes	1994
The Gene Pool	Stewart Copeland	1994
Shaken Not Stirred	Michael Daugherty	1994
Suite d'Lorenzo	Orphy Robinson	1994
Siwe Bell Music	Traditional Ghanaian, arr. Afadina Atsikpa & Ensemble Bash	1996
Damba	Traditional Ghanaian, arr. Ibrahim Abukari & Ensemble Bash	1996
Yaa Yaa Kolé	Traditional Dagomba music, arr. Thomas Segkura & Ensemble Bsh	1996
Takai	Traditional Dagomba music from Ghana, arr. Ibrahim Abukari & Ensemble Bash	1996
The Catering Trade	Django Bates	1997	Premiere at BBC Proms / BBC Radio 3    July 1997
Sisaala Sebrew	Thomas Segkura, arr. Ensemble Bash	1997
Architects Tumble Down through the Clowds	Peter McGarr	1998	Premiere at Spitalfields Festival
Chew Chow Chatterbox	Stephen Montague	1998
Tunnel	Simon Limbrick	1998
Harold and Sylvia in the Avenue of Frosted Trees	Stephen McNeff	1998
Time Gentleman, Please	Cameron Sinclair	1998
The Art of Concealment	Christopher Fox	1998
Lampa / Kuko / Lamlo	arr. Emmaniel Osei Awuku	2000
Dance of the Dragonfly	Keith Tippett	2001
Echolalia	Rachel Leach	2002
Sound Asleep	Peter McGarr	2002
Shard	Graham Fitkin	2002
Slip-stream	Howard Skempton	2002
Rimfire	Stephen Montague	2002
Bash Peace	David Bedford	2002
Breather	Stewart Copeland	2002
Capoeira	Trad, arr. Joby Burgess	2003
Huddle	Roger Marsh	2019
Analogue Native	Sarah Angliss	2020
Rock Paper Scissors	Colin Riley	2020
The Acoustics of Morecambe Bay	Peter McGarr	2021
Blink and You'll Miss It	Carlos Lopez-Real	2024

References