Benedict Heaney

Ben Heaney - electric violinist. I first started playing electric violin in my early teens, inspired by Stephane Grappelly, Nigel Kennedy & Pete Hartley. Having said that, as a musician I’m inspired by a very broad mix, from the easiest of easy listening to the most difficult and complex avant-garde. Blending Disco with Ceilidh, Folk and Funk in the Hoolies Band is a joyous thing to do! I love to make music to be enjoyed and danced to. Be warned, as well as the expected pure-tone violin sound, my electric violin has Fuzz, Wha and Flange settings too. It is 30 years since the roots of Deltaviolin were fully founded, in a recording session with David J Haskins for his “Songs From Another Season” album (Beggars Banquet, 1990) Since then, I have developed as an artist producing work engendering unexpected reactions, often eliciting an extraordinary response. “Has to be one of the most carefully constructed musical statements of any Oxford artist in 2017” “Thought provoking. Challenging. Exacting. Ambient at times, almost intrusive at others” “An artfully constructed whole… a significant contribution” “I am simply amazed yet again by this work” “ramps up the tension and turbulence” “It is emotionally pulverising” “Exciting and exhilarating” “I found it quite calming” “The mood doesn't lift” “I really love that” “swooping violin” “swirling strings” "He aims to move his audience immediately away from the familiarity of merely watching a performance or simply listening to a recording to immersing them totally in a musical experience with no known bounds." “It properly is experimental, it is off the wall… it's really inventive. It's just sort of taking an instrument and taking it to its furthest capabilities” “Nash the Slash attempting a Steve Reich piece and deliberately getting it all mangled up” “forty years of climate change and fracking as the icecaps melt beneath the igloos” “It’s like a million voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced” “An x-ray of terrified souls burned to the ground, or jumping out of windows” “malevolently swirling violin ramping up the intensity” “Like a coded distress call from a dying star” “Ramps up the storm John Cale style” “It sounds almost like a car crash” I am inspired by artists from a broad spectrum of styles across history and around the globe; drawn to the most challenging artists who work at the extremities of art forms and is especially driven by the legacy left by legendary violinist Paganini. “Could have been the soundtrack to the movie Open Water that saw a couple on a diving holiday left to the sharks, the music's ripples and eddies providing an illusion of eternal buoyancy” “This is music you could play in a darkened room, when you're on your own, in the middle of the night… and see what sort of nightmares you get afterwards!” “The background noise to all those dreams you have about being pursued by strange wraith-like aliens in an abandoned factory” “Wailing echoing mournfully and profoundly unsettling” “Horror film soundtrack shadows” My work is uncompromising, likened by Diamanda Galás as the closest sound to her voice she has ever heard Deltaviolin has garnered fantastic description both as a solo event and as part of a production team. “It really is amazing.  I can’t quite put it into words what it makes me think.  Every time I do, it reads like I’m losing the plot.  But I think that’s the point isn’t it – it is beyond words -  an expression of the utter internal consciousness/feeling.  You could say it is what is at the DNA of any song, poem, story etc.  It isn’t really music.  Its more like internal consciousness. “ “A very talented musician and theatre maker, Benedict Heaney can create music that takes you places you haven’t visited since childhood and places you never want to go to again! He has a wonderful ability to understand your vision as a director, and he is able to add layers of atmosphere that brings a production alive. Whether his music is thought out and well rehearsed or improvised on the spot, it is always brilliant. He is a joy to work with and possesses a wealth of creative abilities.”