I am a musician, sound designer and performer living in the UK.
I use improvisation to experiment with approaches to playing the ‘Cello. I make theatre & sound for theatre. I started making short films in 2020. I collaborate with people, musicians, artists & performers. I co-run a visual theatre company called The Ding Foundation.
I like to pay attention to sounds, experiences, stories, silence, senses and people.
Since training at Community Music LTD in 1998 I have had a wide variety of roles engaging with people of all ages and their creative involvement in music, sound making and performance.
I am currently using Paulo Friere's 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' finding ways to put his re-assessment of methods in education, into practice in learning, teaching and participation in creative arts.
Below is a summary of my journey through different kinds of formal learning and education:
1992 - 1996: Batchelor of Music Performance Degree from Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 1995, ’96, & ’98: Student at Porthcawl Jazz Summer Schools. 1997: Mask & Physical Theatre adult education course with John Mowat at City Lit. 1998: Open College Netwok : Community Music LTD - Music Tutor Training Course 2003: Mentored through The Ding Foundation in 'Theatre Futures' at BAC. 2005/6: Regular participant in Process Oriented Psychology seminars with Arlene & Jean Claude Audergon. 2005: Participant in 'Logic of movement' workshops with Stephen Mottram -Puppet Centre Trust. 2006: Participant in 'Performing Clown & Comedy' intensive 2 week course - Mick Barnfather. 2007-12: Participant in regular Butoh Workshops & informal performances led by Selina Papoutseli. 2013: Participant in CPD training in 'Understanding Autism' through Sound Connections. 2017: Teacher and student on : City and Guilds Level 3 certificate in 'Education and Training for the life-long learning sector' 2018: Participant in Augusto Boal's 'Forum Theatre for mental health' 3 month course London, working with collaborators of Augusto Boal. Up to date/ongoing CPD in Safeguarding training for children, children in care and vulnerable adults. Enhanced DBS Checked.
These roles give you an idea of the kind of engagement I am experienced in.
- Working with young bands, musicians and songwriters on personal creative practice, composition and group work during writing, rehearsal and recording process.
- Lecturing and mentoring students in sound design for theatre and performance.
- Music and sound making sessions for people with a history of mental health concerns.
- Instrumental tuition, practical and theoretical rhythm workshops.
- Choir and group singing facilitation with nursery to mixed age community choirs and elderly.
- Workshops in experimental play with the sound of objects in spaces and places, both for recordings and in performance.
Organisations I have worked for include: Central School of Speech & Drama, Community Music LTD, Kings Place, Museum of the Home, Opera North, The Roundhouse Studios, Act for Change, Bristol Plays Music, The Royal Opera House Education Dpt, Youth Music, Hackney Music Service, Eastside Education Trust, The Studio Upstairs, Waltham Forest Arts and Education Service.
Excerpts from reviews of performances and recordings:
'Tulse Hill' - solo record with Linear Obsessional: "BRILLIANT improv pieces for solo detuned cello by glorious Hannah Marshall !!!! - minimal & rhythmic & instant & also eternal !!! - first BC random-hit of the day !!! - there is a god !!!!" -Pyongyang Plastics
The Ding Foundation's 'Wild Life': "..perfect, sensuous clarity of performance. A heartfelt play, Wild Life serves up a jungle of emotions, the urge to make sure you never fall into the pit of personal abandonment and become stale, a ghost of yourself; for nobody should ever feel that small or insignificant. A wonderful production! Ian D. Hall - Liverpool Sound and Vision
Live performance with John Edwards - Bass & Alex Ward - Clarinet: "The trio play two long pieces, with every note forged an act of co-operative discovery, every pattern of sound new, transient and fleeting, never to be heard again" Morning Star Online.
'Gratuitous Abuse' by Barrel with Ivor Kallin - Viola & Alison Blunt - Violin: "...imagine three first class musicians locked up in a time capsule, having associated with various shamans, drunk Romanian fiddlers, Yiddish chant leaders, the serialists, especially Webern. Then folks like Ligeti, Satie, and various Dadaists pop their head round the door from time to time to put in their tuppenceworth. After a few months you let them loose in the 21st century to pick up on the very new....." Fouter & Swick
Halftone with Yvonna Magda - Violin, Tina Hitchens - Flute & Caitlin Callahan - Bass: "The foursome play an unsettling, absently beautiful post classical music evoking wind in the trees, unresolved conversations and difficulties around corners" – Misfit City.
Wild Theatre's 'Stone Belly': '...A trance-like hypnotic power, magnified by Hannah Marshall's specially composed score it lured the audience smoothly and effectively into it's world of dreams and memories, a place inhabited by discarded and forgotten things..." Animations Online -Isabel Smith
'Haste' with Ingrid Laubrock - Tenor Saxophone & Veryan Weston - Piano: "sublime technical abilities, which is marked by spectacular passages of pizzicato and con arco playing. Replacing the absolute bass of the music, Marshall nonetheless shows up with brilliant passages where she reinvents melodic lines, provides spectacular harmonic intervention, and sets the pulse around which much of the music revolves. Together, these three musicians have created an ingenious document where past and present collide revealing a glimpse what might be in a not-so- imaginary future" - Raul de Gama Rose
Live performance with Julie Kjaer - Alto Saxophone & Rachel Musson - Tenor Saxophone: " a single diaphonous improvisation of heart stopping intensity and quietude that brings the entire room into a tip-toed state of heightened awareness..." Daniel Spicer - The Wire.
Tulse Hill: "..with 'Tulse Hill' Hannah Marshall has proven herself to be a solo player of imagination and intelligence; recording an album of deceptively simple but very rewarding and hypnotic music. A series of small meals that combine in a feast for the ears and mind." -Michael Holland - Ears For Eyes
