In 1975 he was awarded a fellowship and residency at Digswell House,an artists’ collective in Hertfordshire. Here he co-founded and composed for Stinky Winkles and was awarded ‘Young Jazz Musician of1979’ by the Greater London Arts Association.

In the '80s, Veryan worked internationally with Lol Coxhill (with whom he made his first recordings – Ogun 525 and Random Radar), the Eddie Prévost Quartet and Trevor Watts – an innovator who, in his band Moiré Music, used a unique combination of African rhythmic structures with the European musical tradition (Arc 02).

In the '90s, collaborations with Phil Minton included the Ways duos, the ambitious Songs from a Prison Diary choral project commissioned for the Europa Festival in Le Mans which was awarded the Cornelius Cardew composition prize, a Taktlos Festival (Switzerland) chamber choir commission based on the life of Anarchist – Nestor Makhno, aquartet performing extracts from Joyce’s Finnegans wake, and 4Wallswith Luc Ex and Michael Vatcher which was a strange synthesis of punk and contemporary jazz but which, like all the projects with Phil combine improvisation with song form.

From2000, Veryan collaborated with Jon Rose on the ‘Temperament Project’ ,improvisations using different acoustic keyboards and violins with selected tunings derived from science, history and the imagination.(EMANEM 4207– a double cd recorded in various European locations)and Tunes & Tuning (HERMES CD 001).

Healso collaborated with Caroline Kraabel (EMANEM 4048),John Edwards and Mark Sanders (EMANEM 4028,4214, and 4205), the Trio of Uncertainty with cellist Hannah Marshall and violinist Satoko Fukuda (EMANEM 4141), Luc Ex in Sol6 (Red Note15)which included saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and Hannah Marshall who Veryan worked with as a trio called Haste.ACD was made from a live recording made at the 2011 Hurta Cordel Festival in Barcelona -(EMANEM5025).

In2000 Veryan wrote ‘Tessellations’ for piano, using research on pentatonic scales which he had been working on since early 1970s.Project was supported by the Peter Whittingham Foundation(London – 2001) and performed at Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments on the only remaining original Luthèal Piano (EMANEM4095). A published paper on pentatonic scales preceded a performance of Tessellations at the International Conference of Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science,Granada, Spain (2003). Tessellations has been performed widely.

In2009, Veryan wrote/composed Tessellations II, a commissioned piece for eight singers which was first performed in Graz - Austria. The following year the Vociferous Choir performed in and around London a program which included the young and gifted American pianist - Leo Svirsky, performing the first part of Tessellations I for Solo Piano and the Vociferous Choir performing Tessellations II. The recording made for BBC Radio 3 was later released (EMANEM 5015).

Other

peripheral excursions have included working in Carla Bley's EscalatorOver the Hill big band project, the Cobra game piece with John Zorn in Berlin and most recently a Lindsay Cooper memorial project which included many of the original members of Henry Cow (2014).

Veryan has worked with Trevor Watts for more than 40 years; over this time their paths have crossed frequently because of shared musical interests particularly in rhythmic ideas. Now their music has one focus – improvisation, but because of their sense of composition and the fact that they both are composers, the improvisations always have a strong sense of structure.

There are two acclaimed recordings on Emanem called “6 Dialogues”,Emanem 4069 (2001) and the more recent “5 More Dialogues”, Emanem5017 (2011). A double CD was released in 2012 - on the Hi4HeadRecslabel called “Dialogues in two places”, HFHCD 010D (recorded2011). This was the first 'live' CD Trevor and Veryan have made and was a document of their 2011 USA and Canadian tour, recorded in Toledo and at the Guelph Jazz Festival. A new recording from a concert was made at the Ad Libitum Festival in Warsaw in 2012 and will be released on Polish label - fortune

The thread throughout Veryan’s work has been primarily improvisation which reveals new aspects of an ever-changing musical identity depending on who he is playing with. Website with links -http://veryanweston.weebly.com/