Trio of Men are municipal song-makers; all glorious asymmetric rhythms, strange headgear, mis-spent harmonies and the joy of living. They have been making songs in care homes, hospitals, schools, fields, libraries, bus shelters and with non-traditional community choir The Choral Engineers. Sometimes you can dance, sometimes you can try, but find that you don’t have seven legs.
They are the house band for the FRANK Water charity and have been heard/observed writing instant festival songs with strangers & friends at Womad, Cornbury & End of the Road.
Hugh Nankivell
Keyboards, viola and vocals. Hugh is a curious composer/performer who wrote the music for the opening ceremony of Milton Keynes’s ‘Concrete Cows’ when he was a teenager and has not looked back since. He has composed large-scale pieces for Opera North, Dartmoor National Park, UNESCO, The National Theatre of Scotland (award winning!) and has led several Anglo-Japanese projects. He currently spends a lot of time with the under 4’s and the over 80‘s. His paternal grandmother was a cousin of Ivor Gurney, which probably accounts for the eccentric and compulsive song-writing.
Steve Sowden
Guitar, ukulele, vocals, electrics and editing - Steve writes/arranges music, sings and makes films. He has made a choral piece for 8 screens and 16 audio channels (the Philharmonia Orchestra's Universe of Sound), made video and sound for a 21st Century travelling ‘Peepshow' and bespoke digital backdrops for non-traditional community performances. He is also attending to his own zero-budget independent films which may never be finished.
Ben Ballard
Percussion, cajon, ukulele, spoons and assorted oddments. Ben has been playing percussion and drums since he was 12. An incessant tapper and roving multi-instrumentalist, he has performed and provided workshops to thousands of people at places like Notting Hill Carnival, Womad Festival, Cornbury Festival, the London 2012 Olympic Festival and an after-school club on a wet Wednesday night, somewhere on the outskirts of Plymouth. He still struggles to play songs in 7/8...