Dominic John Marshall – Pianist/composer, born Bannockburn, Scotland, 1989. Raised in Salisbury, the rural county of Wiltshire, southwest England.
After studying classical piano for 10 years under the tuition of his father, Dominic was awarded the Alan Hawkshaw scholarship to study jazz at Leeds College of Music. By summer 2010 his graduation recital had won him the LCM Piano Prize.
After being accepted on to the Masters course at Conservatorium van Amsterdam in autumn of the same year, Dominic was lucky enough to receive guidance from the likes of Kurt Rosenwinkel, Aaron Parks, Dave Douglas, Gerald Clayton, Brad Mehldau and Ambrose Akinmusire. His first trio CD ‘The Oneness’ was recorded, self-produced and released in this time, Chris Parker of LondonJazz calling it ‘a striking debut’.
In April 2011 Dominic received The Countess of Munster Musical Trust Award for young British musicians of exceptional ability, which financed the final year of his postgrad. After graduating ‘Cum Laude’ in May 2012 with a 10, his second trio CD ‘Icaros’ was released on the F-IRE Label (‘…certainly on a par with any other piano trio I’ve heard this year, if not better. A five-star offering if ever there was one.’ – JJ Wheeler) and went on to win Best International Jazz Album 2012 on TokyoJazzNotes.
In March 2013 Dominic was awarded a full grant from Help Musicians UK’s Emerging Excellence Award with which to record a new album. In summer of that year he was selected unanimously by a jury of Jamie Cullum, Gilles Peterson and Jez Nelson to perform at the ‘BBC Introduces’ showcase at Band on the Wall, as part of Manchester Jazz Festival. The live recording was broadcast in August for BBC Radio 3.
Dominic’s latest CD ‘Spirit Speech’ was released through Origin Arts in Spring 2014. It has been called ‘an excellent, imaginative and distinctive album that repays repeated listens’ by LondonJazzNews, and ‘Already an undoubted jazz highlight of 2014. Masterful!’ by CultuurPodium. It was on the basis of this recording that his trio was selected to play at the Dutch Jazz Competition 2014, from which Dominic took home the ‘Best soloist’ award.
Parallel to his piano career, Dominic has been making electronic beats since his teenage years. Under the name 〄 DJM 〄 he has built up a following outside the jazz-world with several EPs of his self-produced projects, BExperimental blog declaring him ‘a rare find who will be a formidable force in years to come.’ This has culminated most recently in the release of his first cassette ‘Foreground Music’ through Patient Sounds. On the horizon: a live tape featuring beats by several of his favourite producers coming soon to the notorious Paxico Records label.