ALL THAT JAZZ?Emilie Conway will perform with her quintet in Ballina this month.
Emilie Conway goes Wilder in Ballina
Dazzling Dublin jazz singer Emilie Conway and her quintet will bring the music of the enigmatic Alec Wilder to Ballina Arts Centre on Thursday, April 24 – a music of originality, haunting simplicity, beauty, humour and warmth, and brimming with Wilder’s fascination with life.
Emilie will join her regular associates Johnny Taylor (piano), Damian Evans (bass) and Dominic Mullan (drums). The fifth member will be the outstanding Brendan Doyle (tenor, alto saxophone, clarinet).
Alec Wilder was born in 1907 in Rochester, New York but made his home in New York City at the famous Algonquin Hotel. Though largely a self-taught composer, he studied composition and counterpoint at the Eastman School of Music. Wilder’s music is a blend of American musical traditions: jazz and the American popular song, and ‘classical’ European forms and techniques that totally resists labelling. He wrote, prolifically and diversely, from songs to sonatas, of remarkable originality, humour and warmth that reveal an intelligent, sensitive mind fascinated by life.
Emilie Conway was first introduced to jazz during a visit to Chicago in 1999. She returned within a year, and apprenticeships with world-famous Blue Note recording artists, Jackie Allen as well as Sheila Jordan, saw her work reaching a level where she was soon performing at a variety of venues and with increasing demand.
Emilie was awarded scholarships to Berklee College of Music in Boston in April 2006 and to a series of summer jazz workshops at the Vermont Jazz Centre with Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton in August of 2006.
Now, nearly a decade after her American initiation into the jazz world, her distinctive voice and inimitable style have earned her much acclaim in Ireland, throughout Europe and back in the US.
To book tickets (€15/€12), contact Ballina Arts Centre at info@ballinaartscentre.com or 096 73593.
