Jan and Steve Iliffe perform their original compositions as an acoustic or electric duo. They also perform to a wide repertoire of silent film.

Jan and Steve’s sax and keys duo emerged from an earlier offshoot of GHOST MUSIC, performing an original repertoire of both improvised and formal compositions by both musicians, with a mixture of jazz and contemporary music. They have developed their interests in visual imagery and perform to film and video. This duo is the basis of the REFLEKTOR flexible group, from duos to septets, and forms the core of Jan’s music to film projects, in particular, EARTH and MIRRORS

Repertoire:

• EARTH (Zemlya) (dir Dovzhenko 1930 88mins USSR)
  Featuring a quartet of Jan and Steve, with Janina Kopinska viola and narration by Oksana Tyminska
• BERLIN: Symphony of a Great City (dir. Ruttman 1927 – 67 mins Germany)
• METROPOLIS (dir. Lang 1926 124 mins Germany)
• NOSFERATU (dir. Murnau 1922 88 mins Germany)
• DER GOLEM (dir.Wegener/Boese1920 88 mins Germany)
• THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (dir. Sjostrom 1921 Sweden)
• THE SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN (dir. Dulac 1927 28 mins France)
• CHESS FEVER (dir. Pudovkin & Shpikovsky 1925 26mins USSR)
• SAFETY LAST (dir. Newmeyer & Taylor 1923 78 mins USA)
• SPEEDY (dir. Wilde 1928 71 mins USA)
• ONE WEEK (dir.Keaton/Cline 1920 19mins USA)
• THE HIGH SIGN (dir.Keaton/Cline 1921 21mins USA)
• A PROPOS DE NICE (dir.Vigo 1930 25mins France)

EARTH is available as a CD album and download – featuring JAN on saxes, Janina Kopinska viola, Steve Iliffe grand piano, Stefan Kopinski bass.

Kopinski has a sensitivity to visuals as reflected in other scores he’s performed for silent movies. And by using his own family in the band Kopinski evokes the intimate, inexplicable bonds of family life that are integral to Dovzhenko’s silent film” – Jazzwise

Further music to image projects by Jan include:

• Mirrors – music to video 2006 onwards
• Ghost Music and Prosthetic Head -to Stelarc’s computer generated talking head. – Screenplay Festival 2004
• Drive Me Crazy – to multi media by Frank Abbot for Shots in The Dark festival, 1996
• Big Cheese – Channel 4 animation-1992
• Music for Missing Places – Touring jazz group with Strings 1991
• Flix from the Stix – Video compositions London & Tokyo 1987
• Salvation Guaranteed – BBC2 film by 198
• Geometry and Gravity – to a film by Tony Hill

The visual poetry and moving emotional content of the film’s potrayal of a Ukrainian community living through what was the Soviet collectivisation project, is perfectly conveyed by Kopinski’s multi-textured saxophone sound, which runs the emotional gamut from rhapsodic, almost Lloyd-like, warbling to gutsy passion.” – Chris Parker – Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s