Daryl Pratt
Daryl Pratt's vibraphone and percussion cut through jazz fusion and contemporary chamber music with equal bite: MIDI-rich grooves, intricate mallet writing, and compositions that move from meditative shimmer to high-velocity interplay.
As leader of Sonic Fiction he centres MIDI vibes in rhythm-rich originals that balance detailed charts with open improvisation. With AtmaSphere the same mallets ride complex African, Indian, funk and swing currents: buoyant, luminous music that can feel meditative one moment and sheer pleasure the next. His own scores for Match and Synergy treat the vibraphone as a full sound world, rolling claves across the bars, blending gongs and hand bells, or locking hocket lines across a percussion quartet. Landscape pieces such as Water Settings and Bundanon Landscape answer the NSW coast and Shoalhaven with overlapping ostinati, metallic colour and drumming that builds to a frenzy. Elsewhere he is the precise chamber percussionist inside Australian repertoire, from Edwards and Boyd to Ford's Icarus cycle. Jazz and contemporary classical are not separate rooms for him; they are one continuous kit.
Artist's website: www.darylpratt.com
Daryl Pratt is featured on the following titles
Pratt's Alchemy
Percussion compositions by Daryl Pratt, one of Australia’s finest vibraphonists in classical and jazz settings, and a sought-after general percussionist.
Composer
In the Pipeline
An improvising contemporary trio of trombone and two percussionists, Pipeline presents a major work from each composer–performer, linked by free studio improvisations.
Composer
Credit: Liner Notes
Performing as AtmaSphere
Flying
AtmaSphere is a Sydney jazz band specialising in virtuosic performances of its own works. Some tracks carry a Zen calm; others offer sheer pleasure from more notes per second than seem possible. Guest spots by Don Burrows and Mike Nock heighten the pleasure.
Composer
Performing as Tall Poppies Ensemble
An occasional studio ensemble of Australian chamber musicians, the Tall Poppies Ensemble records Australian chamber music with crisp brilliance and outstanding precision: outback pulse, contemplative stillness, Asian-inflected lyricism and political colour.
Red Earth
A world-premiere recording of important Australian works for instrumental ensemble. Performers and repertoire were hand-selected for the project, which was funded by the Australia Council.
Performing as Sonic Fiction
Powerful Medicine
One of Australia's most interesting jazz groups plays original material that is rhythm-rich and performed with virtuosity and style.
Composer
Producer
Performing as
Water Settings: Australian Music for Percussion Duo
Match is a new Australian percussion duo featuring two of the country’s finest players: Daryl Pratt, Head of Percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium and a prolific composer, and Alison Eddington of Synergy Percussion. Most of the programme is by Pratt.
Composer
Arranger
Daryl Pratt also appears on
Still Life: Australian Music for Viola
This is the third solo viola disc on Tall Poppies, and one of the few such albums ever issued in Australia. Patricia Pollett is widely regarded as among the country’s finest musicians, and the violist who has done most to draw new works for the instrument.
Icarus
The Icarus myth has long drawn Andrew Ford, and this disc gathers the works it inspired. The Kowmung Music Festival Players appear alongside Terra Australis, recorded at the Aspen Festival.
Viva Sax!
Margery Smith is a Sydney-based saxophonist whose virtuosity meets the full range of this Australian programme, from mid-century sonatas to later works that lean into jazz, improvisation and ensemble colour.
Harbour
This CD features the remarkable voice of the septuagenarian tenor Gerald English in works written especially for him by Andrew Ford. A star-studded gathering of musicians accompanies him and also plays three solo works.
Crossing a Bridge of Dreams
This CD gathers some of Anne Boyd's most enduring works, mostly from the 1980s. Many pieces reflect her passion for Asian music, heard especially in the flute writing. Premiere performers return for the recording, among them John Harding on viola in My Name Is Tian.
Raft Song at Sunrise: Chamber Music, Vol. 2
Following the best-selling first volume of Ross Edwards’s chamber music (TP051), this disc gathers some of his most enduring works, recorded here for the first time.
Daryl Pratt is a member of
Tall Poppies Ensemble
An occasional studio ensemble of Australian chamber musicians, the Tall Poppies Ensemble records Australian chamber music with crisp brilliance and outstanding precision: outback pulse, contemplative stillness, Asian-inflected lyricism and political colour.