18/09/2024 Dundee Fringe
Musician Tomos Ciucelis took his audience on a musical journey last Wednesday night at the Keiller Centre with his show ‘Instrumentalisms’ as he played a captivating solo guitar performance featuring jazz standards and originals.
The guitarist and composer has performed for many decades, and he certainly showed off his talents through his composing, improvisation, and live looping techniques when he took the Dundee Fringe stage.
In conversation with The Magdalen, Tomos made it known his love for jazz started when he first heard Joe Pass’ Live at Yoshi’s jazz album, stating:
“I was overwhelmed with a desire to play like that. It was as if someone had turned a light on in a dark room. To me, jazz sounded like the ultimate form of freedom, something that was both intimate and public, elemental, and sophisticated. I got my first guitar, and from that moment, my world was never the same.”
The most enjoyable part of the night for me was seeing the passion Tomos has for performing, as he indeed showed how the sound of jazz has many layers through a mixture of chord patterns, arpeggios, and scales. He is truly a musician that feels the music he plays, as he moved at one with his guitar with his eyes shut, seemingly drifting off to wherever his melodies takes him. Even though myself and the audience were physically in the Keiller Centre, it was hard to not want to join Ciucelis on this melodic journey as his obvious delight received smiles from those in the room along with heads that rhythmically nodded along to the music.
It was clear Tomos understands his instrument well, as he used all parts of the guitar for his improvisation section ranging from the neck to the scratchboard as his loop pedal trapped the differing sounds before he included chords and riffs. The melody he created easily had me fooled to believe there was bound to be more guitarists hiding somewhere! This truly highlighted his talents, as who can say they can create a song simply from sounds? Not me anyway!
Tomos discussed his approach to improvising with The Magdalen, stating:
“The goal is to enter a state of flow and stop overthinking. As soon as you rationalize, you snap out of it. When improvising the guide is the feeling, or to avoid sounding cheesy, the emotional truth of the moment. Its always a risky endeavour, but so is life.”
An amazing answer if I do say so myself!
Music in my opinion is about connecting to people, and the lengthy round of applause the audience left Tomos Ciucelis with on Wednesday night was indeed a big giveaway to the connection everyone felt to his music. He is an incredibly talented musician and I for one would take joy in seeing him again!
Written by Holly Flynn, Staff Writer for The Magdalen
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