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Sylvia Hallett studied music at Dartington, and then spent two years studying composition with Max Deutsch in Paris. She now works as both composer and improviser.

She has played in many international festivals since the late 1970s, having worked with several well-known and respected musicians, including David Toop, Alasdair Roberts, Evan Parker, Anna Homler, the late Lol Coxhill, Maggie Nicols, Phil Minton. Groups include Accordions Go Crazy, LaXula, British Summer Time Ends, Arc,The London Improvisers Orchestra, The London Hardingfelelag and The Heliocentrics. She also performs solo, (eg. in Vigne Museum, Rosazzo, Italy 2015), and in duo with Chris Dowding (Sylvia & I).

Projects with various theatre and dance companies include collaborations with the dancer/choreographers h2dance (Hanna Gillgren and Heidi Rustgaard), Miranda Tufnell, Emilyn Claid, Jacky Lansley, Lost Dog, and Eva Karczag, the live art puppeteer Nenagh Watson, and Suffolk-based Wonderful Beast. She has performed and musically directed the music of Adrian Lee in world tours with the Young Vic's highly acclaimed "Grimm Tales", and The Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of "Comedy of Errors" , "Tales from Ovid" and "Canterbury Tales".

Sylvia has released three solo CDs, two on the MASH label, which contain songs, improvisations, and tape collage pieces derived from her compositions for theatre and dance. Her 3rd solo release, White Fog on the EMANEM label features the bowed bicycle wheel, and her recent album Tree Time, featuring bowed branches and vines is available on Bandcamp, as is her album Telescope. She has also recorded numerous albums with groups and duos.

Commissions for 22 BBC Radio Dramas include Tess of the D'Urbevilles, Kings, Virginia Woolf's Kew Gardens, and more recently Thousand Cranes.



Shorter biography: (106 words)
Sylvia Hallett is a multi-instrumentalist and composer moving between violin, bowed bicycle wheel, saw, hurdy-gurdy, electronics and found objects. She currently plays solo, with Colourscape, and The London Improvisers Orchestra. Recent collaborators have included Chris Dowding, Mike Cooper, David Toop, Jah Wobble, Anna Homler, The Heliocentrics, Clive Bell, LaXula, Opera North, h2dance, Jacky Lansley, Miranda Tufnell, Eva Karczag, Wonderful Beast, and The Royal Shakespeare Company. She performs internationally as a solo improviser, having released six solo albums. In July 2015 she was commissioned by the Livio Felluga Wine Company to create and perform a solo site-specific work on a hill in an Italian vineyard.