Patrick Ellis

The co-artistic director alongside Zygmund de Somogyi for the online Contemporary Music Magazine, PRXLUDES.

Since joining in 2023, Patrick has contributed articles featuring interviews with Sylvia Lim, Lise Morrison, Christian Drew, Laurence Osborn, Esther Wu, Celia Swart, Mia Windsor, Patrick Giguère, Alex Groves, Bobbie-Jane Gardner, Robert Nettleship and Joanna Ward, as well as written features on Ivan Vukosavljević's debut album, 'The Burning', Avenue Azure's self-titled record, Ireland's most forward thinking ensemble, Kirkos' ambitious work Beginner's Guide to Slow Travel, Ailís Ní Ríain's NMC release, 'The Last Time I Died', the 2023-24 National Youth Choir Young Composers, Kory Reeder's US label, Sawyer Editions and Zubin Kanga's Cyborg Soloists project.

Open Union is an electric guitar and modular synth duo made up of composer-performers Peter Bell and Patrick Ellis.

Described by treasured composer Howard Skempton as being, ‘sometimes subtle and unstable; sometimes rich and dense’, the duo aims to build up strong collaborative relationships to create new verbal and text based works. Their current collaborators are Christine Cornwell, Wilson Leywantono, May Chi and Paolo Griffin, with a new piece by Seán Clancy currently in the works.

The duo have performed at UK events Ealing Extranormal, AMOK, Don't Mind Control, Birmingham Modular Organisation and CODA Festival. In 2024, they curated a triple bill concert at Centrala Space in Birmingham, which featured performances from themselves, as well as singer-songwriter May Chi and electronic act, Wildforms. And in 2023, they undertook a mini-tour of The Netherlands, as part of the Sounding Here concert series at Splendor in Amsterdam and Batavierhuis in Rotterdam.

Active between 2013 and 2021, Vallé was Patrick’s home-recording project that took influences from Ambient, Shoegaze and Dream Pop, as well as Experimental and Contemporary Western Classical Music.

Over the course of eight years, the complete digital discography included two albums, five eps and several singles. A live one-off live performance that featured new devised material took place on the 9^th of February 2020, as part of Birmingham’s Ideas of Noise Festival. The live line up featured Patrick Ellis and Peter Bell on electric guitars and Georgia Denham on vocals and modular synths.

A podcast series which asks questions to fifteen composers on different topics.

A Scratch Radio Series that was aired between January and June 2016, with a special episode in May 2017. Each week a different student composer at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire was interviewed. On the show their music, approach and influences on were discussed.