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OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS with Nils Kavanagh

  • Interviews / Q&As

Nils Kavanagh is a young jazz pianist and working professional musician from County Sligo. IMC's Louis Scully joined him for a quick chat at The Cooler.

LS: Hi Nils. So, how long have you been a jazz pianist?

NK:
I've been playing jazz since I was about 16, but I've been playing piano since I was 6. I got into jazz through the Sligo Jazz Project. One day it just kind of clicked for me.

LS:
Can you pinpoint the exact moment at Sligo Jazz that got you hooked?

NK:
It was one of the gigs. The tutors were playing Donald Fagan's album ‘The Nightfly’ and it was just really magical. It was so joyous and I could see the musicians having such a good time, and they were all so good as well. I had never seen musicians that good. It was just unbelievable. That sparked something in me straight away. A passion.

LS:
Nice! And what happened then? What was the next step?

NK:
The next step after Sligo Jazz was joining a local jazz orchestra and taking jazz lessons with a local pianist, Mark Murphy. Then I got lessons from Scott Flannigan, a jazz pianist from Belfast, and since then it's just kept going up and up. Now I'm studying jazz at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

LS:
And you won the Young Irish Jazz Musician of the Year 2022-2024 – how did that come about, can you talk about that experience?

NK:
I didn't actually hear about it until maybe two months before the deadline in 2022 and I remember asking two guys to come and do the video with me, to audition for it. We literally filmed it the afternoon of the deadline. I still have a vivid memory of submitting the videos ten minutes before the deadline at midnight, which is unlike me, I like to have things more pre-planned, but that was the only day those guys were available. Then I remember getting a call from a random Irish number about a month later. I answered the phone and it was John Daly from Limerick Jazz, and he said, ‘well congratulations – I'm very happy to tell you that you got into the final!’ I was kind of gobsmacked at that point, I was like what?!

To get to meet my peers and get to know them and hear their music was honestly one of the best things about that whole experience. Everyone was really supportive. It wasn't like a competitive, athletic kind of thing, everyone was really nice, and obviously winning was a really good feeling. It helped to propel my career forward quite quickly. It's enabled me to record an album which is coming out fairly soon – no confirmed date on that yet – and it enabled me to go on a tour of Ireland last year and all that kind of stuff so it's been really great for me. I'm really grateful for that award!

Nils rehearsing at The Cooler, July 2024. Photo credit: Louis Scully

LS: Fantastic. You mentioned your new album.. has it been recorded?

NK: Yeah, it's in the mixing process at the moment. I recorded it with my trio last year in August straight after my Irish tour. In terms of a release date, I can't give a fixed time period yet but I'm hoping to release it either late this year or early next. It features most of my original music and one tune by the producer Eddie Lee. I'm super excited to have it out in the world! It's still in the mixing and mastering process but please keep an eye out.

LS: Where did you record it?

NK: We recorded it in Limerick University Concert Hall which was the same venue for the final of the Young Irish Jazz Competition. They have a very beautiful piano there which was Mícheál O'Súilleabháin's. It was quite surreal to record the whole album on that.

LS:
I'm looking forward to hearing it. So what can the audience expect on Aug 9th?

NK:
On the 9th of August you can expect a lot of different music. All of the music from my upcoming album will be played. Mostly original music but we'll also be covering some jazz standards. It's gonna be a really fun, energetic and explorative night of jazz piano trio. I'm really excited to play here in The Cooler!

The Nils Kavanagh Trio play The Cooler on Friday, August 9th 2024.


Tickets are on sale here.

From left: Derek Whyte, Nils Kavanagh, Miles Ronayne rehearsing at The Cooler, July 2024. Photo credit: Louis Scully

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