Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

Dr Sandy Evans OAM

saxophonist, composer, educator, music researcher

“…this saxophonist surely ranks as one of the best contemporary jazz composers/musicians anywhere.” Ian Patterson, allaboutjazz.com January 27, 2012

Dr Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned composer and saxophonist with a passion for improvisation and new music. She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s, toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia, and been featured on over 40 albums. She leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, and co-leads Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. She is a member of Mara!, The catholics, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), Ten Part Invention, austraLYSIS, Friends of Kim Sanders, Atma Blu, Waratah, Andrew Robson’s Tallis project, Ben Walsh’s Orkestra of the Underground and SNAP. She has performed with many leading jazz musicians including Andrea Keller, Paul Grabowsky, Silke Eberhard, Ingrid Jensen, Judy Bailey, Han Bennink and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2018 Sandy toured Germany and Sweden. She was a featured soloist in Lloyd Swanton’s widely acclaimed Ambon project.

Sandy has an extensive composition portfolio and has received many commissions from leading jazz, improvising and new music ensembles. Recent commissions include a suite in honour of legendary Australian saxophonist the late Bernie McGann, and a CD RockPoolMirror based on photographs by Tall Poppies’ Belinda Webster. Wesleyan University Press released Sandy’s composition Testimony, a major work about the life and music of Charlie Parker with poetry by the Pulitzer Prize winning American poet Yusef Komunyakaa, in the US in 2013. Sandy composed Kali and The Time of Change, the title track of The Sirens debut CD.

Sandy has a keen interest in Indian classical music. She collaborates regularly with Sydney-based Indian musicians Sarangan Sriranganathan and Bobby Singh and recently released the CD Kapture, a tribute to South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada.

‘…a masterfully performed fusion of jazz and Indian classical musics… the improvisations exemplify the virtuosic energy that is a key resonance between jazz and Indian classical music.’ Cummins 1/6/15 www.musictrust.com.au

Her CD Cosmic Waves, featuring South Indian mridangam virtuoso Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani and Sruthi Laya, is released in India on Underscore Records. In 2014 Sandy was awarded a PhD from Macquarie University for practice-based research in Carnatic Jazz Intercultural music. She began collaborating with Aneesh Pradhan and Shubha Mudgal during a Churchill Fellowship visit to India.

Sandy is an experienced teacher and inaugurated a Jazz Improvisation Course for Young Women run annually by SIMA. She is Lecturer in Jazz at UNSW and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Composition and Jazz Units at the Sydney Conservatorium. She appears in the Australian jazz documentaries Beyond el Rocco and Dr Jazz.

www.sandyevans.com.au

Andrea Keller

Australian pianist and composer

Dedicated to the performance and creation of contemporary jazz and improvised music, Keller has created a considerable body of work, which includes devising and leading projects such as Still Night: Music in Poetry, Transients, Five Below, Masters & Apprentices, The Composers Circle, The Komeda Project, The Company of Pianos, From Ether, Three Lanes, The Andrea Keller Quartet/Quintet, The Wayne Shorter Project, and The Bartok Project.

The diversity of Keller’s approach has seen her collaborate as performer, composer and arranger with Australian large ensembles such as; the Black Arm Band, the Australian Art Orchestra, Ten Part Invention, Mike Nock’s BigSmallBand, the Bennetts Lane Big Band, & the Sydney Women’s Jazz Collective, jazz musicians such as; Sandy Evans, Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Bernie McGann, Allan Browne, contemporary classical musicians and ensembles such as; Genevieve Lacey, the Song Company, Ensemble Offspring, Flinders Quartet, James Crabb, Marshall McGuire, Zephyr Quartet, Trio Solstice, Claire Edwardes and Seraphim Trio, plus Internationals such as; John Surman (UK), Silke Eberhard (GER), Ronan Guilfoyle (IRE), and Nicole Lizee (CAN).

Lauded for her music, Keller has received three ARIA Awards, six Australian Jazz Bell Awards, two Art Music Awards, an APRA Professional Development Award, the Merlyn Myer Composing Women’s Commission, and fellowships from the MCA/Freedman Foundation and the Australia Council. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Improvisation (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts (2001) and a Master of Arts (Research) from Queensland University of Technology (2011). Keller is lecturer in Music (Jazz & Improvisation – Piano) at the Faculty of Fine Arts & Music, the University of Melbourne.

www.andreakellerpiano.com.au

Personnel

Sandy Evans saxophone/s
Andrea Keller piano

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by email to info@wangarattajazz.com

Featured artists

• Jazz/improvisation by Sandy Evans
• Jazz/improvisation by Andrea Keller