First Person: clarinettist Oliver Pashley on the new horizons of The Hermes Experiment's latest album

“Why the name?” and “Why the instruments?” are the two most common things we get asked about our group. As a member of The Hermes Experiment, a quartet consisting of harp, clarinet, soprano and double bass, it’s perhaps understandable that these are the two things that stoke people’s curiosity. 

The combination of instruments was a stroke of chance, the collision of imagination and pragmatism. The structure of the group provides a traditional bass-chords-melody setup (albeit in an unconventional way), and we all knew each other (and each other’s playing) having recently finished studying together at university. It’s as simple as that. It was when we all moved to London for our postgraduate studies, now over 12 years ago, that we decided to form as an ensemble. 

The name Hermes comes from the defender of the arts, the messenger, the being associated with transitions, the blurring of boundaries - as well as coincidentally being the name of our clunky university webmail server back in the day (so clunky in fact that it was not sufficient enough for emails to be simply deleted from said server: they had to be “expunged”, a word which always seemed far too graphic to apply to something as benign as an email and which I’ve never encountered since). 

The ‘Experiment’? When we began back in 2013 we had no pre-existing repertoire for the group, and so launched ourselves into a very real experiment, working with composers our age, striking out into the world of commissioning, along with developing our group’s individual voice through improvisation, while at the same time as arranging works already in existence (for example, songs for voice and piano) for our peculiar forces. 

Today, I can walk over to my bookshelf and plonk down on my table several bulging folders of music containing our commissions since we began: we now have pieces written for us from over 60 different composers, and we have arranged dozens of other works, some old and some new. Much of this music is on our albums recorded with Delphian Records, the third of which, TREE, is out this October. 

The 12 years we’ve been playing together have given us the opportunity to really get to know each others’ playing (and singing) styles - both how we approach things as individuals but also how we bring that to the group. 

We are constantly amazed by the new sounds that composers manage to draw out of the same four instruments, and this, together with our continued ever-changing improvisation work, has led to (we hope) a group that always manages to find something new to say, who is always searching for ways to expand the possibilities of what we do as an ensemble. 

We have been lucky to work with such a huge number of marvellous composers over the years and to showcase their wonderful work, both in our live performances and our recordings. Delphian have been fantastic, giving us the space to go in any direction we felt was right. This trust is invaluable. With TREE, we wanted to continue to celebrate the music we’ve created, not just in collaboration with composers, but to reflect on our own individual strands of inspiration and how that impacts what we bring to the group. 

Three of the pieces you will hear on TREE have come from an individual bringing their own original ideas to Hermes for the first time. There is an arrangement of Héloïse’s Thunder Clears, a piece she wrote in 2024 for solo voice that was premiered at Wigmore Hall and then expanded and adapted for our album; Marianne’s beautiful Islands, a meditation on digital disconnection; and my own But I Still Breathe, a short song reflecting on one’s place in the world, trying to find stillness in the madness. We are used to arranging (and recording) existing works ourselves, but this is the first time that one of our recordings will feature new, original work by members of Hermes. 

In rehearsals, especially with new commissions, we are all finding our way together, discovering what the composer has given us and how to make sense of it. Having the composer rehearsing and playing alongside you feels different, but not intimidating (and that hopefully goes for my own piece too!). 

The process is still the same - we are still collectively searching for the sound and soul of the work - but there is an added intimacy and vulnerability at play, knowing that this music has come from a friend who knows you and your playing so well, and who trusts you to take their music and bring it to life. 

The new album is us looking ahead to the future while also acknowledging where we’ve come from as a group. We have brand new commissions by Laura Moody, Abel Selacoe and Fergus Hall, arrangements of pieces by Nicola LeFanu, Errollyn Wallen, Hannah Peel, Cecile Chaminade and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, alongside our three own Hermes pieces. The gentle yet definite thread of nature runs throughout the album, holding together all the different strands of our work, reflecting something outwards while also hopefully giving space for reflection and contemplation. 

Is it still an experiment? Certainly. We have no idea what the future holds, much in the same way we didn’t back in 2013 when we gave our first concert to a dozen people in a draughty loft space off Brick Lane. We will continue to experiment and commission and create and explore, and to celebrate the breadth and depth of musical experience both here in the UK and further afield.

• TREE reviewed on this week's Classical CDs
• Read classical music reviews on theartsdesk