Closing the festival, this special event features the talents of our 2020 Artist in Resident Dr Sandy Evans OAM, alongside long-time collaborators Satsuki Odamura and Steve Elphick for Magic Music.

The project brings together three musicians whose inventiveness, musicality, sensitivity, responsiveness will open doors to magical musical places.

A trail-blazer for women in contemporary music, internationally renowned composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans, has 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 1980’s, and leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, and co-leads Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. Her work and research in intercultural music, specifically Indian Carnatic music, has led to international recognition. Sandy recently won the Jazz Performance of the Year at the APRA Art Music Awards for her international collaboration Bridge of Dreams featuring Shubha Mudgal, Aneesh Pradhan and Sudhir Nayak and the Siren Big Band.

Satsuki Odamura is a master of the koto and shamisen, and she has pioneered awareness of these ancient Japanese instruments in her performances throughout Australia. Satsuki began playing Koto at ten years old, and joined the Sawai Koto School of Music in Tokyo when she was eighteen, becoming the live-in student of teachers Tadao and Kazue Sawai, both of whom deeply influenced her philosophy of music and approach to collaboration. She has since collaborated with a wide variety of artists across a range of genres, from jazz, to Western classical, to modern, and Aboriginal music.

ARIA winning bassist Steve Elphick has provided the backbone for artists like Roger Frampton and The Engine Room, and is the bassist of choice for jazz artists such as Sandy Evans, Mark Simmonds, James Greening, Carl Dewhurst, and many more. He came from singing in the church choir to playing bass, and has grown into one of Australia’s most in-demand bass players across a range of genres.

This festival finale can conjure a sense of peace, as it can a dark mystery, or a ray of warm sunshine uplift our spirits and enrich the soul.

Sandy Evans (saxophone) Steve Elphick (bass) Satsuki Odamura (koto)

COVID SAFE INFORMATION

What you will need to do:

1) First and foremost if you feel unwell at all do not come to the venue, stay at home.2) Consider downloading the Covid Safe app and if you have it please ensure it is running when you attend the theatre 3) When you arrive you will need to queue with the group you are attending with, on the designated markers down the entrance staircase and along the street4) A staff member will allow groups to enter one at a time5) Once you have checked in, please sanitize your hands6) Please log the contact details of anyone in your group with our team7) You will be shown to your seat, and one of our wonderful team members will come and take your first drink order, then deliver it to you in the theatre.

8) If throughout the evening you need to get up for a drink or wish to use the bathroom please queue in the appropriate lines that are identified by large poster signage, and floor markers.9) After the performance please maintain your social distancing as you leave the venue, and be sure not to congregate on the footpath.

What 505 are doing:

1) Please know we are cleaning all high touch surfaces regularly, cleaning the full venue before and after performances and deep cleaning the venue once a week.

2) Hand sanitiser is available throughout the venue.3) Our staff are utilising PPE and being temperature checked prior to work.4) We have marked out the distanced areas between seating to ensure everyone maintains the 4m2 rule.5) We have invested in additional POS systems so that staff are not sharing equipment.6) We will be checking in with you ahead of the performance to make sure you are well .7) We will be checking in with you post performance to provide resources and information on what you should do should you fall ill.8) We are closely monitoring the advice of State and Federal Health Authorities to stay up to date on all changes in real time.

A vintage recording of Gest8

“Inner Space” by Sandy Evans, filmed live at the SIMA Sound Lounge in Sydney feati. Satsuki Odamura (koto) featured on this track.