MUSIC
From working with some of the UK’s leading improvisors and performing in various jazz ensembles to touring the world with his award-winning band WorldService Project and composing commercial music for multi-national companies, Morecroft’s uniquely multidisciplinary experience as a musician is both extensive and diverse.
PERFORMANCE
Since its formation in 2009, Morecroft’s genre-bending quintet WorldService Project (WSP) have been his main performance and compositional outlet. WSP have built an impressive and dedicated following across 19 countries since 2009. Winning the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award 2010 and receiving a nomination for the Young European Jazz Award 2014 (Burghausen), WSP have completed huge tours across Europe, the USA, China, Japan and India and released four albums to critical acclaim from The Guardian, Jazzwise, Jazz UK, The Telegraph and The Wire to name a few. With frequent airplay on BBC Radio 3 and 6 Music and Jazz FM, WSP have also recorded a live session for WDR Cologne, RBB Media at Jazzfest Berlin and been featured on national radio stations in Sweden, Norway, France, Japan, Italy, Poland, Estonia and Slovenia, as well as a live TV broadcast in China. Currently working with leading choreographer and movement director Caroline Pope and visual artist Jessica Knight, WSP are refining and exploring elements of movement and choreography in their live performances.
WSP have performed at some of the world’s greatest festivals for jazz/improvised music including Jazzfest Berlin, NH7 Weekender Festival (Pune, India), Saalfelden International Jazz Festival (Austria), Tampere Music Happening (Finland), Umea Jazzfestival (Sweden), Ljubljana Jazz Festival (Slovenia), Tokyo Jazz Festival (Japan), Goa International Festival (India), JZ (Hangzhou, China), OCT-LOFT (Shenzhen, China), London Jazz Festival, Jazz sur son 31 (France), #4Jazz (Coventry), 12 Points (Portugal) and Platzhirsch (Germany). Through several UK tours, WSP have worked extensively with some of the UK's most dedicated promoters including Ronnie Scott's, Jazz North East, Kings Place, The Vortex, Efpi (Manchester), Sound Cellar (Poole), Brecon Jazz, Serious and Cafe Oto. During this time, WSP have performed alongside Acoustic Ladyland, trioVD, Led Bib, Kit Downes and Elliot Galvin Trio among others.
In 2016, Dave formed Ms Mercy, quickly obtaining a residency at Snape Maltings in Suffolk and performing with Chaos Theory (London) and The Canteen (Bristol). The band are set for a residency at the prestigious Le Chapeau Rouge in Carcassonne, France in winter 2019. More information on Ms Mercy can be found here.
Dave has also recently performed with Moers Artist-in-Residence John-Dennis Renken in improvised duo format, and created a Rome-based trio, ‘Fall-Out’, with Marco di Gasbarro and Simone Memè. Fall-Out combine music and video through improvisation, written material and graphic score approaches to create a documentation of our emotional state following an event of significance and intensity, such as a rave, explosion or a brutal ending of a relationship. Fall-Out debuted at Rome's prestigious 'B-folk' and 'Klang' venues and followed this up with a 6 date UK tour in 2019, with Italian and German tours planned for 2020. More information on Fall-Out can be found here.
Dave is also regularly working with musicians in Rome including Giordana Piedimorsi, Debora Cesti and Emanuele Tomasi, with regular performances across the city.
As a freelance musician, Morecroft has done sessions for BBC Radio 2 and 4, performed in various lineups at festivals and venues across the UK and performed a solo piano slot supporting Robert Mitchell at The Forge Camden, exploring the relationship between 20th Century classical repertoire and improvisation, such as Messiaen, Shostakovich and Lutowslowski. His work as a pianist has also seen him hold residencies at Pizza Express, and work with various commercial, function and party bands.
See video and audio performance samples for all the above projects.
COMPOSITION
In addition to composing three albums for WorldService Project, Dave has composed advertising music for Volvo, Olay, Nutella, Vaseline, Dove and KFC as well as the scores for ‘The Port’, a short film premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Dave has also written music for a number of small ensembles with some of London's leading musicians and improvisers, as well as commissions for Match&Fuse projects and festivals.
See more composition work examples here
. Further solo piano pieces by Dave can be heard on the ‘Solo’ page.
MR. GIGGLES
With a background and casual interest in theatre and performance (having starred in University productions of Threepenny Opera and West Side Story), Dave has created the character of Mr Giggles, who currently inhabits a space in the WorldService Project set. Mr Giggles is a devillishly delightful clown who pops up to cause mischief and mayhem wherever he can.
His full story can be read here.
