Welcome to the Donald Bousted Edition, where we are preserving his immense creative and artistic output. Follow our ‘Tributes to Donald’ YouTube series, on microtonal and non-microtonal flugelhorn, ukulele and percussion, using these three YouTube Handles:
@microtonalprojects
@stephenaltoft
@DonaldBoustedUkulele
NEW on SOUNDCLOUD
NEW ALBUM, ‘Floating on my Cloud’, containing world premier recordings of Donald’s non-microtonal music, and includes a ukulele piece, both written and played by him, as the title track. Many thanks to his collaborators Lee Ferguson (vibraphone), Lena Gersbacher (oboe), Celia Ireland (recorder), Maiko Matsuoka (violin) and Elena Ralli (piano). https://donaldbousted.com/floating-on-my-cloud/ https://donaldbousted.com/floating-on-my-cloud/
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONALD:
2025: To honour the birthday of my dear friend Donald Bousted, Microtonal Projects has added his PhD to the Microtonal Projects Resources Folder on Dropbox. His daughter, Dorothy was delighted to give us permission to do this. It is entitled, ‘Rhythmic, diatonic and microtonal structures in musical composition: method and notation, 1993-1998’, (2001).
If you would like to have access to this- which contains lots of information about microtonal topics, then request it at info.microtonalprojects@gmail.com
2024. To mark the birthday of our late friend Donald Bousted on 21st November, we are publishing the current Catalogue of Donald’s work, recently edited by Kathryn Bennetts, the recorder virtuoso who collaborated together with her husband Peter Bowman for so long with Donald.
https://www.loreamenabar.com/discography
PERFORMANCES
8th November, 2025, ‘Dad’ for malletKAT in 19-divisions (of the octave). Lee Ferguson, St. Petrus Canisius Church, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
9th November, 2025, ‘Dad’ for malletKAT in 19-divisions (of the octave). Lee Ferguson, St. Urban Church, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
8th November, 2025, ‘Dad’ for malletKAT in 19-divisions (of the octave). Lee Ferguson
3rd July, 2025, ‘Three Miniatures’ for solo clarinet (1984) , Zafraan Ensemble, ‘Shaping Time’, Theater im Delphi, Berlin, Germany. https://zafraanensemble.com/archive/news/shaping-time
31st May, 2025, ‘The Dream’ (1992) for solo piano, ‘Three Miniatures’ for solo clarinet (1984) and two movements from ‘Sunday Solos’ (2020) for solo violin – ‘The Bitter Taste’ and ‘Line’. Beyond Three Voices , KM Art Hall 1-23-20 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Phidias Trio: Maiko Matsuoka, violin Ryuta Iwase, clarinet and Erika Kawamura, piano
14th April, 2025, ‘Sand Walking’ (World Premiere of live version), Hyperchromatic Festival, Goldsmith’s University, Stephen Altoft, (quarter-tone trumpet) with Lore Amenabar Larrañaga (quarter-tone accordion):
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hyperchromatic-music-festival-tickets-1283827866709?aff=oddtdtcreator
24th October, 2024, ‘all is not as it seems’ from ‘Spirit’ (19.5), Elisabeth-Schneider-Stiftung, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, at 8pm. duo Contour play as part of a concert by the IFMS Society of freelance musicians.
Stephen Altoft, 19-Ton TrompeLee Ferguson, malletKAT
8th February 2024, ‘Time Dreaming’ for three 19-division trumpets, 1pm. St. Pauls’ Hall, University of Huddersfield, UK. Stephen Altoft, 19-division trumpet https://www.hud.ac.uk/performance/february/
16th February, 2024, ‘Time Dreaming’ for three 19-division trumpets, 6.15pm. Churchill College, Cambridge University, UK. Stephen Altoft, 19-division trumpet https://www.tickettailor.com/events/churchillcollegemusicsociety/1133835
16
C
RESOURCES
The International Ekmelic Society have released the 4th Journal of the presentations from the 2021 edition of the ‘Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful’ Symposium, at which Donald gave his last presentation- on 19.5, with duo Contour. Patrick Ozzard-Low provided an article reflecting on this work, together with a Foreword by trumpeter, and long time collaborator of Donald, Stephen Altoft. It can be ordered from here: here
https://www.mackingerverlag.at/produkt/mikrotoene-small-is-beautiful-4/here
Michael Dixon, the composer/hornist with whom Donald worked, has posted not only a multi-track recording of ‘Melancholia’ on Soundcloud but also play-a-longs on YouTube @thebrasswhisperer so horn players can play the piece at home!
WORKS
Some works (download sheet music and recordings) are distributed worldwide by tutti.co.uk in the UK and some recorder music by Orpheus Music in Australia. The rest are available direct from us. Recordings can also be found on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube.
Recordings of Donald’s music can also be found on Stephen Altoft’s Soundcloud and Stephen Altoft’s Bandcamp site as well as on Apple Music, Spotify and other digital platforms.
Keep in touch via our Facebook page.
contact: donaldbousted.edition(at)gmail.com
Donald Bousted (1957-2021)
Donald Bousted constantly re-invented himself. Firstly he was a classical guitarist, then he devoted himself to being a composer- increasingly, but not exclusively, of microtonal music. He was very interested in other media, and he became a media artist himself, making films, installations, and electronic works. During the last few 5 years of his life he dedicated a lot of his time to the classical ukulele: he recorded many pieces onto his Ukulele Channel on YouTube, commissioning new works, releasing CDs and digital albums, and of course playing concerts.
When he was researching his PhD, there was very little accessible information about microtonal music. He did a lot to change this. He founded Microtonal Projects, ran four UKMicroFests in London (having visited LA MicroFest), nine Wild dog media events in London and then founded the EUROMicroFest with Stephen Altoft in Germany. With Stephen he wrote a book, ‘The Microtonal Trumpet’, and they travelled to South Korea, toured the UK and around Europe presenting the project of 25 years.
He liked humour in music, in his own music too: he said that was one reason why Haydn was a favourite composer of his.
His passing in December of 2021 has left a huge hole. He never wasted time, he just got on with living, composing, making his media pieces, perfecting his Ukulele craft. We will try to continue what he started, always with him in our hearts and mind, remembering his vision, energy and determination, and ‘just getting on with it’.
DONALD BOUSTED Edition 