Composer and Pianist Steve Tromans graduated from Birmingham Conservatoire in 1997. Since then he has gained equal recognition as pianist, composer and band leader in a series of bands, the most notable of which are the Howl Band, Church of Logick, the Debop Band and Hydrogen Jukebox. He has performed in concerts and festivals across the UK, Ireland and Europe, plus tours and special performances in India, Bangladesh and Japan.

In 2003 he was awarded a commission from Birmingham Jazz to write “Beat Series Part I: Howl - a musical setting of the poetry of Allen Ginsberg for Narrator and 8 instruments”, which was premiered at the CBSO Centre in January 2004.

This work has since been performed a total of 7 times around the UK (StAnza Poetry Festival, St Andrews in February 2005; Cheltenham International Jazz Festival in May 2005; Glastonbury Festival in June 2005; The Vortex, London in October 2005; a special performance in Birmingham to mark the actual 50th anniversary of the first public reading by Ginsberg in 1955, also in October; The Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November 2005 and the Between the Lines Literary Festival in Belfast in April 2006).

In May 2006 he moved to Mongolia for a year-long sabbatical, where he helped establish the country’s first Jazz Academy and co-ran the first Modern Jazz Club in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. He was awarded Honorary Membership of Birmingham Conservatoire “in absentia” during this year away.

Tromans has dedicated the last couple of years to writing for solo piano, and released his first album of original solo piano music, Jewel in the Lotus, in 2004. In April 2006, shortly before embarking on his sabbatical to Mongolia, he recorded a mammoth five hours of solo piano compositions and improvisations, since dubbed The PIANO Sessions: Room of the Half-Dream, Volume I of which is to be launched at this year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2009.

On 8th January 2009, he premiered his Beat Series Part III: Bomb – a musical setting of the poetry of Gregory Corso, at Birmingham’s Yardbird Jazz Club, and on 24th January 2009, he premiered the opening movement of his epic Beat Series Part II:On The Road – a musical setting of the novel by Jack Kerouac at Birmingham University. The final Beat Series Part IV: Naked Lunch – a musical setting of the novel by William S. Burroughs is due to receive its world premiere in Paris in 2009, as part of tri-city celebrations of the 50th anniversary of publication of Burroughs’ hallucinogenic novel..