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Nicky Schrire

“Schrire becomes part of the fabric of her music. Her voice is a warm and supple instrument that serves as a dispensary of emotional power.” -Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz

About Me

Nicky Schrire is a multitalented and inventive British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Esperanza Spalding with The Boston Globe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial…she’s got her own thing, and it’s very much worth listening to.”

A graduate of the South African College of Music and New York’s Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Anthea Haupt, Peter Eldridge, Theo Bleckmann, and Dave Liebman. Schrire has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Dublin and South Africa, with musicians including Ben Wendel, Gerald Clayton, Fabian Almazan, Nir Felder, and Taylor Eigsti. She released three critically acclaimed jazz albums-2012's ”Freedom Flight”, 2013's “Space and Time”, and the 2014 EP “To The Spring”-which earned her comparisons to songwriters like Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her duo album “Space & Time” featured Grammy- nominated pianists Gerald Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Fabian Almazan. The Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum described the recording as “fifty minutes of emotionally eventful, richly crafted music”.

Performance highlights include headlining the 2018 Cape Town International Jazz Festival, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Centre for Carnegie Hall’s Ubuntu Festival, performances in the UK at Royal Festival Hall and the Vortex, and having her composition ESCAPE: The Ingrid Jonker Suite programmed for the 2022 String Quartet Biennale in Amsterdam (sadly cancelled due to COVID).

Schrire was delighted to be awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant to record her new album “Nowhere Girl”, to be released on 9 June 2023 on Anzic Records. Produced by Grammy-nominated producer Oded Lev- Ari, the album features a rhythm section comprising Canadian trio Myriad3 (Ernesto Cervini, Dan Fortin, Chris Donnelly), saxophonist Tara Davidson, guest vocalist Laila Biali, and Mozambican guitarist Julio Sigauque (Freshlyground).

As a journalist and broadcaster, Schrire was a contributing host and producer for Toronto’s JazzFM.91 station, creating and presenting the weekly segment “This Bright North” from 2021 to 2022. She has been a contributing journalist for LondonJazz News for over a decade, covering the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival and starting the “Mothers In Jazz” series.

As a podcaster, she produced and hosted the 14th season of the original jazz interview podcast “The Jazz Session,” interviewing guests like Maria Schneider, Terence Blanchard, Artemis and Gretchen Parlato. She recently completed a contract as Associate Producer at CBC Music/CBC Radio.

Schrire is currently on faculty at the University of Toronto where she teaches Applied Voice in the Jazz Studies Department. She previously lectured in Jazz Studies at the University of Cape Town and spent a year as Acting Head of the Jazz Voice Department. She has taught master classes and clinics in Dublin, New York and South Africa.