Hannah has been making music and playing the 'cello through improvisation, cross-arts collaboration, sound design and education, since leaving The Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 1996.
She plays mainly in freely improvised situations where focus can be solely on listening and awareness; but also plays new compositions, with bands and regular groups and sometimes solo. At times she treats the instrument as a collection of parts to be manipulated, at others she plays traditionally.
Hannah makes music and sound design for theatre, performance, spaces and film. She has played, devised and collaborated with theatre and arts companies including: The Ding Foundation, Wild theatre, Norwich Puppet Theatre, A2, People Show, Little Angel Theatre, Improbable Theatre, The Clod Ensemble, One Moment in Time, Indefinite Articles, Angika Dance, Royal Opera House, Oval House Theatre.
She has played in new compositions by Simon Fell, John Butcher, Tim Hodgkinson, Dylan Bates, Julie Kjaer, Sam Eastmond, Constantin Dimitrescu, Michael Oliva, Matthew Bourne, Julien Pontvienne, Alexander Hawkins, Eva-Maria Houben, Dominic Lash & Alex Ward, in large ensembles - Moss Freed's 'Union Division', Rick Jenson's Skronk, The London Improvisors Orchestra, Maggie Nicol's 'The Gathering' and The Brian Irvine Ensemble - that use a variety of methods for real time group communication and improvisation.
Some of the artists and companies Hannah has played and collaborated with include: Veryan Weston (sol 5 and sol 6), Alison Blunt & Ivor Kallin (Barrel), Rachel Musson, John Edwards, John Russell, Roger Turner, Tony Marsh, Dave Tucker, Evan Parker, Nick Malcolm, Lauren Kinsella, Sylvia Hallett, Ansuman Biswas, Ntshuks Bonga, Steve Beresford, Jacques Demierre, Luc Ex, Diatribes, Dan Am, Ingrid Laubrock, Bernadette Russell & White Rabbit.
Hannah 'teaches' regularly in schools and community, guiding musicianship, creative practice, and practical playing with people of all ages and experience.
She started making short films in 2019.
Please get in touch to discuss a project or collaboration.
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
