George Fogel was born in London and through exposure to jazz at an early age wrote and improvised with family, local musicians and school ensembles. At 16, his quartet won the ‘Music for Youth’ competition at the famous Queen Elizabeth Hall, and went on to play at the Royal Albert Hall with a prize for composition. He attended Junior Guildhall School of Music from 14 under the wing of Martin Hathaway and went on to get a scholarship to study for a Bachelorate in Music in 2001.  During his time at Guildhall, he took a year off to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA under Lazlo Gardony and then upon return graduated in 2006 with a first-class honours degree.  With influence from peers and Professors (Martin Hathaway, Simon Purcell and John Taylor) the importance of both rigorous study of pre-existing work alongside encouragement to find an individual voice was central to his engagement with the London music scene. Throughout this period an omnivorous musical diet led him to work in both traditional jazz environments (regular appearences at venues such as The Vortex, Pizza Express, Ronnie Scotts and 606 to name a few) and rock/dance clubs (as part of Jules Buckley’s Heritage night at Cargo, the Spitz, 333) with projects such as ‘Shux’ which focused on improvising with sound worlds infused with electronica and rock. The close relationships with members of this band, Tom Challenger as well as other Guildhall students such as Tom Farmer, resulted in further projects.

This diversity of musical forms alongside an insatiable desire to let the influences distil themselves through a more traditional jazz format led to his being asked to join Empirical in 2008. He appeared intermittently on a UK tour playing the music of Eric Dolphy, and original music (live BBC radio 3 Broadcast in 2009), as well as an ongoing duo relationship with Nathaniel Facey which was aired live on a Resonance FM broadcast. There was a collaborative ensemble with columnist and musicologist Kevin LeGrandre in a tribute to Cannonball Adderley, and original music composed over these years will be released in the near future.  Since 2009, he has been studying at the London College of Communication for an MA in ‘Sound Arts’.  This stems from a fascination with the visual arts, animation and film and is manifesting itself in a growing show reel of audiovisual work. He was recently asked to appear and write music for a feature film about a jazz musician.

Throughout this time he has worked with many members of the Loop and F-IRE collective. Particularly a strong writing partnership with Tom Challenger has lead to the formation of ‘Dice Factory’. The name was chosen through his fascination with Luke Reinhardts cult classic novel ‘The Dice Man’ in which decisions made by dice rolling determine structural events which are then lived through for periods of time. Methods of composition attempt to reflect this concept. He also leads an ensemble for five keyboards/pianos, which performed as part of the F-IRE New Talent Festival. In the last year he visited New York for lessons with Vijay Iyer, and is currently writing for a trio with Yamaha award winning drummer Dahoud Merchant heavily influenced by Iyer’s revolutionary rhythmic concepts.

Aside from all the above projects, George has been asked to run workshops and ensembles at Guildhall School since 2008. He can also be heard performing as sideman in many varied outlets. From Matt Calvert (Three Trapped Tigers) jazz rock trio, to the other electronic based bands such as John Randall Band,  Tom Challenger’ MA, Kevin Haynes West African Sabar Group, and more acoustic settings such as the Phil Donkin Quartet, Rich Turner Quartet, New York trumpeter Andre Canniere’s Band and The Mike Chillingworth Quartet. He has also had the privilege to appear alongside such musicians as George Garzone, Orphy Robinson, Uk hip-hop act Foreign Beggars, and Parliament drummer Jerome Brailey.