Andrew Downing is a double bass player, composer, bandleader and cellist living and working in the creative music community in Toronto. Called a “21st Century Voyageur” (Geoff Chapman, Toronto Star), Andrew finds himself in some of the more interesting cross-genre musical situations in the Canadian music scene. His most recent musical project is a seven-piece chamber ensemble in which Andrew's cello is joined by Aleksandar Gajic (violin), Joe Phillips (double bass), Kevin Turcotte (trumpet), William Carn (trombone), Peter Lutek (bassoon and clarinet) and David Occhipinti (guitar). The group will be releasing a CD in April of 2010 called Silents which features music written to accompany the silent films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Impossible Voyage. The album also enlists the help of Quinsin Nachoff (clarinet), Jesse Zubot (violin), Tania Gill (celeste, pump organ) and Mark Duggan. The group recently performed the score to Caligari as part of the NUMUS concert series in Waterloo, and will be performing at The Tranzac in Toronto in April to officially release the recording. His former group, Great Uncles of the Revolution, won him two West Coast Music Awards, The Grand Prix de Jazz from the Montreal Jazz Festival and a Juno Award for their second album Blow The House Down. As a composer, Andrew's style is influenced by artists such as Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington, Olivier Messiaen, Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden with a healthy dose of country music, Turkish music, Jazz