An Evening with The Synthetic Jazz Orchestra

A relaxed evening of music and videos presented by the composer. The event consists of two parts, roughly 45 minutes each with an interval of 15 minutes.

The Synthetic Jazz Orchestra is a virtual musical ensemble created by its very real artistic director Carl Nicholson.

Formerly a Space Operations engineer and technical director of a Bristol games company, Carl has always had musical aspirations, composing and playing piano in pubs and cafés, but was never accomplished enough to make it as a professional musician.

In 2002, Carl bought Sonar Cakewalk home studio software and started making music digitally. In 2008 he upgraded to Ableton Live and has continued to make music ever since, releasing three albums and a collection of singles as well as several music videos. Some tracks have been played at the Escher Club at Strange Brew and on Rinse FM.

The music itself can loosely be described as "electronica", in the sense that it uses a variety of digital instruments and sound effects, but it is highly thematic, borrowing heavily from ambient, experimental,  classical, rock, folk, jazz, and reggae to create a series of pastiches, each telling a story or evoking an emotion.

Now retired, Carl's ambition is simply to enjoy making music and occasionally having the opportunity to present it to a real audience, face to face.