Garry Jones has been a professional musician for thirty years and a musical instrument maker for twenty. He has performed within many genres of music—folk, rock, r&b, jazz, traditional Irish, cabaret, world music and sacred music (as well as fusions of many of these)—as a soloist, in duos, trios, bands, ensembles and choirs. He has composed music for rock operas, musicals, children’s musicals, documentaries, large-scale outdoor festivals, fire events, millennium celebrations and dance theatre. He has lived in Australian Aboriginal communities and traveled through Papua New Guinea and the Middle East, living and playing music with native musicians. He has recorded some of his compositions in caves, in rainforests and on the top of an extinct volcano (using honeycombed rock formations as a huge resonant percussion instrument).
Garry founded and ran for a number of years, “Horizon’s Unlimited” an adventure tour company specializing in extended expeditions into wilderness areas of Queensland with a focus on bush survival, ecological awareness and Australian Aboriginal spiritual perspectives.
Garry plays classical and steel string guitar, electric and acoustic double bass, bazouki, viola da gamba, piano and synthesizer, and all sorts of instruments he has designed and made—percussive and melodic.
He formed “Mimburi Guitars” with his brother Andrew, making classical and steel string guitars (two of which he uses in his performances), mandolins and dulcimers.
In 1995, he formed Hubbub, a performance group who designed and constructed their own large-scale instruments out of mostly recycled materials.
As well as performing, the group conducted instrument making and playing workshops with schools, youth and community groups and people with disabilities at festivals, fairs, parades and exhibitions. Hubbub created “Junk Jam,” a portable (just) sound playground made entirely from recycled materials as part of their arsenal of equipment. They also released in 1997 a CD titled Propeller.
In 1998, Garry managed, musically arranged and performed with Jane Le Rossignol’s White Bird show, which toured Ireland. He subsequently stayed there for the next six years, immersing himself in Irish arts and music. Over that period of time Garry conducted instrument making and playing workshops with schools, youth groups and community groups, often culminating in participation in festivals and street parades.
Garry has composed the music for the Millennium celebrations for Clifden Arts Week in the West of Ireland and a five-movement suite Fire Eye based on the ancient spiritual capitals of the provinces of Ireland. Fire Eye was first performed in conjunction with an island-wide Bealtaine celebration that he instigated and organized involving the relighting of the ancient hilltop Bealtaine fires around Ireland, North and South. This was supported by fires lit in thirty-six different countries around the world and attended by thousands of people.
In 2003 he designed and built “The Temple of the Wind” commissioned by Jennifer Beale for Brigit’s Garden in County Galway, Ireland.This is a large-scale construction styled on the ancient tumuli or “passage tombs” of Ireland and designed to create music from the wind and channel it into a central stone chamber. Visitors to Brigit’s Garden can play along with the music of the wind on a limestone xylophone of his design placed in the central chamber. He has built a musical water installation at Mournegrange Camphill community for people with disabilities in Northern Ireland
Garry is currently living near Roundstone, County Galway, designing and making musical instruments for people with disabilities and musical sculptures, composing, recording and performing his music and guiding tours to sacred sites in the west of Ireland.
