Sandy Evans with Mara and Llew Kiek
Mara and Llew Kiek are two of my closest musical friends: I have travelled around the globe with them many times with the band Mara! The band has been acclaimed as “The Dom Perignon of Australia’s World Music Bands” – Sydney Morning Herald 2005. I’m looking forward to playing with them in an intimate trio setting exploring music from Eastern Europe fused with the music of Eastern Australia!
Mara Kiek: Voice, tapan, darabukka, percussion
Llew Kiek: Bozouki ,baglama, oud, guitar
Sandy Evans: Saxophones
Ellen Kirkwoods ‘Mieville Project’
“Brilliantly devised” – John Shand
The quirky, rhythmic eccentricity of Ellen Kirkwood’s music meets the weird, dark and imaginative writing of British author China Mieville in a suite of four illustrative narrated pieces. Commissioned by Arts Musica Australis and premiered in October 2015 at the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival to a room full of enraptured listeners, the suite musically explores excerpts from Mieville’s books. A runaway train ambushed by frolicking spirits, a nightmare moth with swirling hypnotic wings, a disease passed on by the utterance of a word, and a cleaning construct that is developing sentient thought are all brought to life through this colourful and captivating set of music.
Jann Rutherford Memorial Award recipient (2012), trumpeter and bandleader Ellen Kirkwood has rapidly been gaining recognition for her compositional work. Her five-part suite, the narrated music-story Theseus and the Minotaur, performed by her band Captain Kirkwood, received wide-spread critical acclaim and glowing reviews.
Ellen Kirkwood – trumpet
Sandy Evans – saxophones
Byron Mark – piano
Hannah James – bass
Alon Ilsar – drums and AirSticks
Caroline Levien – narrator
