A magician of sounds, Tom Arthurs is a trumpeter and composer for the 21st century – drawing infinitely from a dizzying range of influences. His music-making represents a rare beauty and creative depth, and he cites inspiration from John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler and Jimmy Guiffre, African and South American traditional music, Berlin’s Echtzeitmusik scene, as well as György Ligeti, Luc Ferrari and Morton Feldman. Aside from music, Tarkovsky, Godard, Weerasethakul, Lau Tzu and Farid Ud-Din Attar remain deeply influential, as do much-cherished experiences of baroque music, the pygmies of Central Africa, Gal Costa, David Sylvian and Arto Lindsay. New York City Jazz Record’s Thomas Conrad has described his playing as “continuously, beautifully unfamiliar”, and allaboutjazz’s John Kelman has written that his improvisations are “simple but perfect”, demonstrating “an exacting perfection” and with “a harmon-muted tone that renders his playing as vulnerable as Miles Davis at his fragile best”. Tom has been described as “a world-class improviser” by UK’s Jazzwise, “une révélation” by France’s Citizenjazz, and “der Glasbläser” (the glass-blower) by Germany’s SWR2. He has recorded for ECM, Ozella, Act, Intakt, Babel, Unit, Jazzwerkstatt, Creative Sources, Babel and Not Applicable and has performed in festivals including Berlin, North Sea, Cheltenham, Moers, Victoriaville, Jonquieres, Bath, Jazzd’or (Berlin and Strasbourg), London, Jazz Jantar, Jazztopad and Jerusalem.