Internationally acclaimed musicians, pianist/composer Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamuravisit Australia in May as part of an ongoing musical collaboration with Sydney-based pianist/composer, Alister Spence.
[from the media release]
Fujii and Tamura are two of the most original voices in improvised music today. Fujii is a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a band-leader who gets the best collaborators to deliver,” says John Fordham in The Guardian. In concert and on approximately 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, the Japanese native synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone.
Japanese trumpeter and composer Tamura is internationally recognized for a unique musical vocabulary that blends extended techniques with jazz lyricism. His playing evokes the great trumpeter explorers of the seventies Miles Davis, Don Cherry and Mongezi Feza yet he would never be mistaken for any of them. Brent Burton, Jazz Times
Alister is recognized as one of Australias most original and distinctive contemporary jazz pianists/composers. Like the greatest jazz pianist-composers such as Monk and Ellington, Spences improvising shows a coherence and imagination that matches his compositional mastery. Andy Hamilton, International Piano
Whilst in Sydney, Fujii will undertake a two-week intensive composer-in-residence at UNSW as artist in residence giving lecture demonstrations and masterclassses.
Performances/Engagements for Spence, Fujii and Tamura include:
- 18 May Venue 505Duo and quartet performances by Spence and Fujii, Tamura and Simon Barker (drums)
- 8 June The Jazzlab, Melbourne International Jazz FestivalSpence and Fujii have been commissioned by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival to present a new Australian/Japan collective – Kira Kira (shine). For this project, Tamura on trumpet and Tony Buck on drums will join them.
- 25 May Io Myers Studio, UNSW“We can play anything”: a conversation with Satoko Fujii on creative determination and the musical self. Satoko Fujii, Roger Covell Fellow 2017
Additional performances and engagements for Fujii and Tamura include:
- 26 May Io Myers Studio, UNSWListen Up! Satoko Fujii with UNSW Music
- 28 May – Brookfield Place, Perth Jazz Festival (Fujii/Tamura)
- 2 June The Street Theatre, CanberraFujii and Tamura with Sirens Big Band
- 10 June Soundlounge, Seymour CentreFujii and Tamura with Sirens Big Band
* In September, as part of a reciprocal arrangement, Spence will travel to Japan to perform duo piano and fender rhodes concerts with Fujii, and performances of Spences suite for improvising orchestra Imagine Meeting You Here, with Satoko Fujii Orchestras (SFO) in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe and at Jazz Art Sengawa Festival Tokyo. The Kobe SFO concert will be recorded for possible release.
