INTRO 05: New voices in Jazz
INTRO 05: New voices in Jazz
The players are:
- Rick Peckham - Musical Director
- Aoife Doyle - voice
- Simone Mendonca - violin
- Matt Berrill - alto sax, clarinet
- Bill Blackmore - trumpet
- Colm O'Hara - trombone
- Julie Cruickshank - piano
- Stephen McFarlane -guitar
- Andrew Csibi - bass
- Kevin Brady - drums
The brightest and best of Ireland's new jazz generation join forces with leading US guitarist Rick Peckham, with new music to inspire them.
Since the 1950s, Ireland has had a small but thriving jazz scene and since those pioneering days, successive generations of players have demonstrated that Irish musicians can bring their own unique personality to the grand tradition of improvised music. Think of names like Stewart, Kelehan, Buckley, Guilfoyle, Wadham, Halferty, McGuiness, Heffernan, Nielsen, a handful of the players who've illuminated Irish jazz since groups like The Jazz Heralds first tentatively took the stage some five decades ago.
This last decade has wrought further changes, with unprecedented numbers of young players coming to the music and now, IMC celebrates their achievements with INTRO 05, its first annual development tour. The class of 2005 brings together ten of the brightest and best of the current generation, many of whom are already firmly established on the Irish music scene. They've honed their skills in places like Newpark Music Centre, with its innovative jazz programme, and in the competitive environment of Dublin venues like JJ Smyths, The Boom Boom Room and The Wellington.
These diverse musical personalities share a common denominator - the appetite, talent and application to succeed in the music that asks so much of its practitioners, and INTRO 05 harnesses the unique energy of young musicians in the spring of their creative life. This unrivalled opportunity to hear these stars of the future in a large ensemble environment will be under the benign direction of leading US guitarist Rick Peckham, who also brings a wealth of experience in his capacity as senior faculty member at Boston's renowned Berklee College of Music, the world's leading institution for non-classical music education. Ringing the changes are Matt Berrill (alto, clarinet), Bill Blackmore (trumpet), Kevin Brady (drums), Julie Cruickshank (piano), Aoife Doyle (voice), Simone Mendonca (violin), Stephen McFarlane (guitar), Andrew Csibi (bass) and Colm O'Hara (trombone), with this rich spread of instuments exploited to the full in a programme of new compositions and arrangements from leading Irish jazz composers like Ronan Guilfoyle and emerging voices like Jonathon O'Donovan and Dylan Rynhart.