Laila Biali Captures the Magic of Winter with New Original Album: Wintersongs

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8 months after the release of her critically acclaimed and JUNO-nominated jazz standards album, Your Requests, Laila Biali is back with an entirely fresh and original offering, marking her 10th recording as a bandleader. Composed from a cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains during a writing retreat in the heart of Canada's Rocky Mountains, Wintersongs is Biali's musical love letter to winter.

For more than 10 years, Alberta's Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity has been a creative haven for Biali, who expresses deep gratitude for the intensive independent residencies that have allowed space for the genesis of new work:

"The Banff Centre is where I go to meet my muse. I have been fortunate to spend time there in every season, but I was especially surprised at how much I loved winter. I was offered a 2-week residency as part of their Fleck Fellowship and arrived on campus in late November of 2021. Every day from dawn to dusk, all I could see and hear was music – in the awe-inspiring sunrises and sunsets behind mountain silhouettes, in the wind as it rose up through towering trees, and in snow that constantly shape-shifted from stillness to storm. Those images and that experience fill this suite of songs."

With funding support from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council, Biali and her team moved this ambitious project from concept to realization. As new production ideas emerged, the vision for Wintersongs expanded to include not only Biali's usual collaborators – like her longtime co-producer, drummer and husband Ben Wittman – but also one of the most in-demand orchestrators, Rob Mathes (Sting, Bruce Springsteen).

Another fresh collaborator for Biali is the highly-decorated flutist and soprano saxophonist Jane Bunnett, who will join Biali on an extensive tour in support of the album's launch this November and December. Bunnett sparkles as she adds sweeping improvisational phrases and solos to both Rocky Mountain Lullaby, Biali's ode to the majestic peaks of Banff National Park, and Dance of the Pines, a sonic journey inspired by flora, fauna and the aurora borealis. Other guests include the acclaimed trumpeter Kevin Turcotte, organ wizard Sam Yahel and the Detroit-born singer Wade O. Brown. Together, they elevate one of the album's more epic tracks, Outside (a Biali original) with such irresistibly hooky melodies, romantic imagery and opulent orchestration it could well become a contemporary seasonal classic.

Wintersongs draws us into an organic experience that feels entirely new and yet achingly familiar – uncharted terrain that resonates with the strong echoes of home.

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