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| Sydney International Women''s Jazz Festival For ten days this November some of the most sensational women in Jazz today will be headlining Sydney's first International Women's Jazz Festival at The Sound Lounge and Courtyard at the Seymour Centre in Chippendale. "The program has an amazing line-up which will appeal to both a broad music audience as well as committed jazz fans", says Programme Director Peter Rechniewski. The international component, which is presented courtesy of the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues and is particularly impressive, is composed of bands which are not only considered outstanding performers but are making their first visits to Australia. As well, there will be FREE Courtyard Concert featuring artists such as the Zoe and the Buttercups and Jess Green and the Pre-Loved, which is sponsored by the City of Sydney ensuring that everyone can enjoy this noteworthy Festival. Performing along the visiting musicians will be Australian Artists such as Sandy Evans and Andrea Keller who are well known to jazz fans here but not so well known is Cuban/Australian Marialy Pacheco. As winner of the Montreux Jazz Festival Prize this July (2012), her 'star' is definitely in the ascendant. "Marialy Pacheco delivers commanding performances of pure musical joy, whether solo performances or as for the SIWJF, as part of the Marialy Pacheco Trio Steeped in the rhythms of her native Cuba and influenced by her love of the jazz tradition Marialy infuses a vibrant spirit and unwavering passion for the music of her birthplace" says Rechniewski Myra Melford who co-leads the collective Trio M has a reputation as one of the most important composers and improvisers of the last twenty years, who encompasses both jazz and composed music. She has been called a fearless musical adventurer and by critic Francis Davis as "the most original pianist/composer to emerge from jazz since Anthony Davis". . New York based French singer Cyrille Aimee is making heads turn in both the US and Europe with her fresh sound and wonderfully communicative style. Since making the finals in the prestigious Thelonious Monk competition in New York, she has become one of the most talked about new faces in the jazz vocal stable. Possessing a warm, enchanting voice that she uses with great control whether singing ballads or more up-tempo numbers, Cyrille communicates with audiences across genre boundaries with an ease usually found only in veterans. German band No Tango Quartet, led by Cologne based saxophonist and composer Christina Fuchs, are a genre bending and blending group that combines contemporary jazz with ethnic music and new music. The band represents an important current of European jazz that seeks to create new sounds fashioned from sources beyond the American tradition. Also appearing is Singer Kristin Berardi, who has been lauded for possessing a voice "warm like a Queensland summer and honest like a country town." At the SIWJF she performs as part of a duo with renowned jazz guitarist James Sherlock. In 2006 Kristin won the Montreux Jazz Festival International Voice Competition (with Al Jarreau as panel chair). She has recorded with the likes of Jim Pugh and Kenny Werner in New York, and the West End Composer's Collective, her own band as well as the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra and Kate Miller-Heidke. Sandy Evans is one of the most important jazz musicians who emerged in the 1980s. A mainstay of Australian contemporary jazz, she has led or co-led some of our most innovative ensembles such as Women and Children First, Clarion Fracture Zone, the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet. Evans has won numerous awards most recently and notably, a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to Australian contemporary jazz as a composer and a musician: a rare honour for a jazz musician. Originally from Sydney, Melbourne based pianist/composer/band leader Andrea Keller is probably the most formidable female jazz talent to emerge in Australia after Sandy Evans. She works across a wide variety of formats from solo piano to duets with bass (or recorder – with Genevieve Lacy), her own quartets and quintets, and the Bennett's Lane Big Band. At the SIWJF, the Andrea Keller Quartet will be joined by Melbourne improvising vocalist Gian Slater. The two have worked together many times in Melbourne but this will be the first time they have performed together for a Sydney audience. Also appearing will be the Aberdeen Youth Festival touring band aka The Alex Silver Quintet who will perform a short set. The band consists entirely of young Australian women jazz musicians led by trombonist Alexandra Silver who directs SIMA's annual 'Young Women in Jazz" workshops with the Sydney Conservatorium. 7, 8, 9, 10, 16 & 17th November at the Seymour Centre. Bookings open now on 02 9351 7940 or www.sydney.edu.au/seymour/ Tickets from $10 - $30 write your comments about the article :: © 2012 Jazz News :: home page |