Yonda Music is the brainchild of Dan Hewson and Jonny Phillips, highly experienced composers, producers and performers combining their skills to create beautifully crafted music with a fresh perspective, mixing classical, jazz and world music, mixing acoustic instruments with cutting-edge electronic sounds.
“outstanding” – bbc music mag
“glorious strings” – dance music weekly
Dan Hewson
Daniel Hewson is a freelance composer, arranger, producer and performer with music on the production music labels Pedigree Cuts (Universal Production Music), Squirky Music, The Gold Leaf Library, PMOL, Audio Network. His tracks has been played, broadcast and synced to film/TV worldwide, including for Paramount Pictures, German, Netherlands and Danish General and Broadcasting, French and Swiss Films.
He arranges for strings, brass, big band and orchestra, records and performs piano, keyboards and trombone. remixes and produces. Past clients and collaborators include the RAH Band, Groove Armada, The Allegri Quartet, The Lost And Found Orchestra (Stomp), Kristine Blonde, Stacey Soloman, The Urban Soul Orchestra, Rui Veloso, Incognito, Omar and many others.
Performance highlights include the BBC Proms, the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Festival Hall, Rock in Rio. He has conducted his arrangements at recording sessions in Abbey Road, and Angel Studios, as well as appearing on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Classic FM.
He has also composed extensively for library music companies such as Pedigree Cuts (EMI Production Music) and Audio Network.
He co-founded 90’s progressive house electronic dance act The Beat Foundation, producing for the Art of Noise and Virgin Records and championed by top DJs Sasha and Digweed. As well as releasing albums through The Beat Foundation he toured internationally, performing a thumping live set with the group to sell-out crowds at Tribal Gathering, at clubs around the UK, Norway, Ireland and Ibiza (at the legendary club Amnesia).
Following a seven-year period living and working in Lisbon, Portugal, Daniel returned to settle in London.
He arranged and performed on a successful UK tour of the project “Look, Stranger” with Ruthie Culver and the Utter Jazz Quartet, performing the songs of Benjamin Britten and W.H.Auden in new jazz arrangements. The tour culminated in a performance at King’s Place, as part of the London Jazz Festival, with Sir Derek Jacobi narrating.
Daniel also works as a freelance piano accompanist for dance at the Trinity-Laban Conservatoire, The Place, Central School of Ballet and the London Studio Centre.
He is currently writing a piano concerto for piano, orchestra, and big band for German concert pianist Andreas Boyde.
Awards:
Osgood Composition Prize, World Songwriting Competition 2020
Jonny Phillips
London-based, award-winning acoustic guitarist and composer born on the borders of England and Scotland. After completing a degree in music at Newcastle College he based himself in London from 1995 until early 2007 where he set about developing his own sound with a unique blend of harmony, rhythms and orchestration.
On passing through the Andalucian city Cadiz, on the way back from Morroco he was so captivated by the music and people of the oldest city in Europe he didn’t leave. Staying for three and a half years soaking up the sounds and vibrations of the southern Spanish sunshine. On returning to London he blended these Spanish sounds with Brazilian rhythms, classical harmony, art-rock, and jazz to produce Oriole’s 3rd album Every New Day (2012).
He is best known for leading the seven-piece Latin American-influenced band Oriole, featuring a unique set of musicians chosen for their musical openness, empathetic playing, and ability to assimilate folkloric styles into a unified contemporary sound. Including Mercury Award nominees Ingrid Laubrock, Sebastian Rochford, and Ben Davis. Oriole released three critically acclaimed albums Song for the Sleeping, Migration, and Every New Day.
Jonny has performed and recorded with many musicians and projects including Arun Ghosh, Polar Bear, Asabre Quay’s Senako, The F-ire Collective Large Ensemble, Barak Schmool, Teco Cardoso, Roland Gift, Soothsayers, Giorgio Serci, The Mad Professor, Juliet Kelly, and Julia Biel. He has recently scored the music for the film Passing Through and is working on an opera for director/writer David Walter Hall.
His music has been used extensively on Film and Television.
Awards:
BBC Innovation Award, Jerwood Foundation Award.