Simon Bookish


Simon Bookish is the stage name of Leo Chadburn, a British musician and composer, known for his work in experimental, electronic, pop and classical music. His music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 6 Music, and Resonance FM. Originally from Coalville, Leicestershire, he moved to London and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1997 to 2001.

Work as Simon Bookish

To date, Chadburn has released three solo albums under the name Simon Bookish. The first two, Unfair/Funfair and Trainwreck/Raincheck, combined his voice with synthesizers and laptop computers. His use of spoken word on Trainwreck/Raincheck and in live performances drew comparisons with "Bowie and Baudrillard, Burroughs and Byrne". His third album, Everything/Everything featured an ensemble of brass instruments, saxophones, Farfisa organ, piano and harp. Chadburn describes this album as "a big band song cycle about science and information".
Chadburn's most recent release as Simon Bookish was Red and Blue EP, an experimental piece based on correspondence between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
He has provided remixes of songs for bands and artists such as Grizzly Bear, Franz Ferdinand, The Organ, Owen Pallett, Seb Rochford and Late of the Pier. He has also contributed tracks to the compilation albums Worried Noodles, a compilation of songs with lyrics by artist David Shrigley, and The Wall Re-built!, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Wall, for Mojo Magazine.

Work as Leo Chadburn

Classical works

Chadburn has written a number of works for classical music groups. These include Unison: Things Are Getting Worse for a large ensemble of pianists, X Chairman Maos, written for the ensemble Apartment House and performed at the De La Warr Pavilion to coincide with their Andy Warhol exhibition in 2011, and Five Loops for the Bathyscaphe, commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia.
His string quartet, The Indistinguishables was written for the Canadian quartet Quatuor Bozzini and performed at the 2014 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. A performance by the quartet at Milton Court in March 2019 with Gemma Saunders as narrator was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in September 2019. His piece for chamber ensemble, Freezywater, commissioned by the Wigmore Hall, won a 2016 British Composer Award. Chadburn was nominated for a second British Composer Award the following year, for his choral piece Affix Stamp Here, written for the vocal ensemble EXAUDI.
Chadburn is currently an associate composer of the London Symphony Orchestra, who performed his piece Brown Leather Sofa in 2013.

Albums (as Leo Chadburn)

Chadburn has released two albums under his own name, Epigram / Microgram, an instrumental album which utilises the Casio CZ-101 synthesizer as its only sound source, and The Subject / The Object, which comprises two 20-minute long tracks of spoken word stream of consciousness and drone music.

Collaborations

Chadburn has collaborated on a number of projects with visual artists. In 2009, he wrote the score for Richard Grayson's video installation The Golden Space City of God, which featured a choir shot on location in Texas singing cult religious texts.
In 2012 he collaborated with the artist Tanya Axford on a piece entitled The Path Made by a Boat in Sound for the Whitstable Biennale, and with video artist Jennet Thomas, on her work School of Change, a "sci-fi musical film", again exhibited at Matt's Gallery.
He went on to work with the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans on a choral work for performance at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2013, based on Samuel Beckett's prose text Imagination Dead Imagine.
Chadburn has also written music for the theatre, working with the Royal National Theatre on a new musical score for their 2007 production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in which he also played the part of "The Singer".
As a performer, he has contributed to the albums of Leafcutter John, Max de Wardener, Patrick Wolf, Serafina Steer and Saint Etienne, credited with recorders, bass clarinet and vocals. He is also credited as a producer on classical percussionist ' album 24 Lies Per Second.
He has occasionally performed works by other experimental composers, including John Cage, Gavin Bryars, Christopher Fox, Frederic Rzewski and Jennifer Walshe. Alongside actor Gemma Saunders, Chadburn recorded a spoken word version of artist On Kawara's twenty volume book, One Million Years , which was released as a limited edition four CD set.

Writing and curation

In addition to his work as a musician, Chadburn has written reviews and articles about classical and pop music for The Quietus, Frieze, the New Statesman and The Wire. He is the curator of the public concert series and the Summer festival at City, University of London.

Discography

Albums as Simon Bookish