Darren English — Designed to delight, visually and musically

Trumpeter Darren English with his beloved instrument, which he says found him. (Photo: John Glenn)

By Mick Raubenheimer

3 Aug 2024

Not only is Darren English a multi-award-winning and internationally lauded musician and composer, but he is also the originator of creative artworks for racing car companies, among other clients.

When did you first identify as a creative artist?

I’d like to think that I first identified as a creative at the age of six when I started drawing all over my school books in primary school. It was about five years after that, around the age of 11, when I identified as a visual artist, having always loved art and design.

When I started high school at the age of 12, I accidentally found the trumpet, or rather it found me, and when I turned 13 later that year I started lessons at my school. By the age of 15 I felt that music was becoming a “calling” and I was soon becoming a creative artist on the trumpet.

Outside of your medium, which branch of art most stimulates you?

Design is most definitely that for me. It stimulates me so much that it has become a dual profession with my music career. I have a design company through which I’ve been fortunate to create designs and artworks for some of my favourite brands I get to be in collaboration with, namely legendary automotive company Shelby, through Shelby South Africa.

I am the first artist and designer creating fully licensed artworks of the Shelby GT40, Cobra, Mustang Super Snake and the Cobra Daytona.

Outside music, I’ve also been fortunate to collaborate with Laude Classic Cars in Cape Town and Ferro & Company Watches, a luxury brand, with my designs. Why I feel design is so incredible is that everything we see or use was designed.

Which artists have inspired you, and why?

Trumpeter Darren English says Miles Davis’s Blue in Green is the one track he returns to again and again for inspiration. (Photo: Alpha Media Productions)

Darren English says design is his second calling. (Photo: John Glenn)

When I think of those who have inspired me in my creative journey, my inner circle of creatives come first as I get to experience them in person – musicians, visual artists and designers alike.

A staple inspiration for me since starting my creative journey as a musician has been and still is Miles Davis – for spearheading so many genres in the music industry and for having everything he creates be in line with what he wants and not determined by the industry or other people.

What, to you, is art’s most important function?

Commitment.

Which local creatives excite you?

Visual artist Gavin Collins for his technique and ability to envision anything creatively and design, build or paint it. He’s one of the greatest artists of our generation and a huge influence on me and my work.

Pianist and dear friend Kyle Shepherd excites me with his incredible “painting techniques” of sound and emotion on the piano and through composition.

Which specific work, be it in literature, music or visual art, do you return to again and again, and why?

Miles Davis’s Blue in Green. I can listen to this track on repeat for hours and it brings out every emotion at any moment.

What are your thoughts regarding the artificial intelligence revolution?

AI is definitely changing the world. In certain ways it’s scary and in some ways it’s incredible. My only current concern with it is that people who are deserving of creative jobs are now losing them to AI.

My hope is that the relationship between creatives and AI becomes a more collaborative partnership and less of what we’ve been seeing, which is people claiming creative “genius”, if you will, based on something they merely asked a computer to create.

Any project you’re unveiling or wrapping up?

I’m currently on tour with my jazz project titled The Birth. We debuted our new works at this year’s National Arts Festival. We performed at Untitled Basement in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, and at the Homecoming Centre (previously the Fugard Theatre) in Cape Town earlier this month.

I am also currently writing some new music, which will be unveiled at the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival in Sandton in September. DM

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