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Sara Caswell

2018 Grammy Nominee Sara Caswell “is a brilliant world-class violinist…one of the very best of the present generation of emerging young jazz stars” according to the late David Baker, internationally-renowned jazz educator and former Director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. Rooted in an early exposure to a variety of musical genres, Sara’s technical facility intertwined with her gift for lyricism continue to attract growing attention to her artistry as a jazz soloist, sideman, and teacher.

Recognized as a “Rising Star” in the DownBeat Magazine Critics and Readers Polls every year since 2013, Sara’s two groups (the Sara Caswell Quartet and the Caswell Sisters Quintet) have been heard in venues ranging from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club to university concert halls nationwide. In 2013 Sara and her sister, vocalist Rachel Caswell, released their CD, Alive in the Singing Air featuring jazz pianist Fred Hersch, to rave reviews and its selection by jazz critic Thomas Cunniffe as one of the year’s “Best Vocal CDs” on Jazz History Online. Sara’s two CDs, First Song (Double-Time Records, 2000) and But Beautiful (Arbors Records, 2005), were recognized in several year-end best-of jazz album releases.

Sara regularly performs with mandolinist Joseph Brent’s 9 Horses and has toured extensively with Grammy-winning bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Society, clarinetist David Krakauer’s The Big Picture, vocalist Roseanna Vitro’s quintet, violinist Mark O’Connor’s American String Celebration, and violinist Darol Anger’s Four Generations of Jazz Violin. She has performed and/or recorded with such artists as Brad Mehldau, Linda Oh, Fabian Almazan, Regina Carter, Jenny Scheinman, Lynne Arriale, Alan Ferber, Ike Sturm, John Clayton, Gene Bertoncini, Charlie Byrd, Skitch Henderson, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Bruce Springsteen. She is a member of the New York Pops Orchestra with whom she has been a featured soloist several times in Carnegie Hall, and was part of the house band for NBC’s weekly variety show “Maya & Marty” starring Maya Rudolph and Martin Short.

Currently on faculty at both the Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, Sara’s formidable teaching experience also includes the Mark O’Connor String Camps, the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, the Indiana University String Academy, and a private studio. She has given numerous jazz string improvisation workshops and master classes and is involved with JEN (Jazz Education Network), MENC (National Association of Music Education), and ASTA (American String Teachers Association).

As an award-winning classical violinist, Sara has soloed with several orchestras, given numerous recitals, and performed as a chamber musician in a variety of settings. She was raised in a musical family and began violin at age 5, moving through the first five Suzuki volumes in just nine months. Subsequent years of private lessons at Indiana University led to her involvement in the classical competition circuit where she won numerous awards and 1st-place prizes. “Sara has always shown a remarkable understanding of different musical styles and an uncommon power of communication. These qualities are making of this young artist an outstanding one,” spoken by the late violin maestro Franco Gulli.

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Album Review

Chuck Owen: Renderings

Read "Renderings" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Nato dalla collaborazione tra la WDR Big Band e Chuck Owen, Renderings conferma quest'ultimo ai vertici dell'orchestrazione mainstream contemporanea e l'orchestra tedesca l'autorevole e avvincente ensemble che sappiamo. L'idea del progetto nasce quando la splendida sassofonista della big band, Karolina Strassmayer, ha chiesto a Chuck di arrangiare una sua composizione, stimolando il bandleader a impegnarsi in un ampio lavoro con l'orchestra di Colonia. Impegni personali e circostanze varie (tra cui la pandemia) hanno ostacolato il progetto, che ...

Album Review

Sara Caswell: The Way To You

Read "The Way To You" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Formalmente il precedente album da leader di Sara Caswell risale al 2005 (But Beautiful, Arbors) ma questa nuova incisione a suo nome non è il ritorno dopo una lunga pausa. Ci sono infatti le quattro incisioni --dal 2013 al 202-col trio cooperativo 9 Horses e la leadership condivisa con la sorella Rachel del 2014 (Alive in the Singing Air, Turtle Ridge) nel un gruppo comprendente Fred Hersch. Aggiungiamo poi la ventina di collaborazioni, anche discografiche, con Brad Mehldau, Miho Hazama, ...

Album Review

Henry Threadgill: The Other One

Read "The Other One" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Giunto sulla soglia delle ottanta primavere, Henry Threadgill non lascia sbiadire la propria splendida vitalità creativa. Lo ha fatto quest'anno sia con la pubblicazione dell'imperdibile autobiografiaEasily Slip into Another World, che con una nuova realizzazione discografica, The Other One. Pure questa imperdibile, si colloca tra i lavori che lo hanno visto impegnato esclusivamente come compositore e direttore dell'ensemble, non in qualità di strumentista e solista, sulla traccia dei precedenti Old Locks and Irregular Verbs, del 2016, e Double ...

1
Album Review

Chuck Owen: Renderings

Read "Renderings" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Renderings by Chuck Owen and The WDR Big Band is a remarkable jazz album that showcases the artist's mastery as a composer, arranger and bandleader. This release stands as a testament to Owen's innovative approach to jazz music blending traditional elements with modern influences to create a unique and captivating sonic experience. The album title is an apt description of the musical approach taken by Owen, as he focuses on the works by other composers along ...

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Album Review

Chuck Owen and the WDR Big Band: Renderings

Read "Renderings" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Anyone who uses YouTube to search for contemporary jazz must surely be familiar with Germany's blue-ribbon WDR Big Band, as it is abundantly represented at the site. Bearing that in mind, it may come as no surprise to those seekers (and others) that the WDR's latest recording, on which it is paired with the esteemed Florida-based composer and arranger Chuck Owen, offers another master class in big-band artistry, or how to make even the most arduous charts seem deceptively simple. ...

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Album Review

Henry Threadgill: The Other One

Read "The Other One" reviewed by John Ephland


Listening to Henry Threadgill's music, the bobbing and weaving doesn't maintain a continuity but can jump from one strand to another, one scene to another, as in a dream. It is tonal and not, just as dreams are, perhaps, rhapsodic or unkempt, the story or plot being as tangible, fungible as a summer breeze. Much is made of Threadgill's chamber-music esthetic. And rightly so. It is “so chamber music precise it must all be premeditated, right?" asked the ...

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Album Review

Henry Threadgill Ensemble: The Other One

Read "The Other One" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Now that Henry Threadgill has begun receiving the accolades he has long deserved--the Pulitzer Prize he won in 2016 for In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Pi Recordings, 2015) being just the most prominent example--it is impressive to find him still relentlessly stretching himself as a performer and composer. Since his first forays into the jazz avant-garde in the 1970s, the maverick multi-instrumentalist has always made music that challenges listeners in exciting ways, but it is his uncanny ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Magic Light

Origin Records
2024

buy

These Precious Days

Mock Turtle Music
2023

buy

The Way To You

Anzic Records
2023

buy

Chicken Or Pasta

Self Produced
2023

buy

The Other One

Pi Recordings
2023

buy

Renderings

MAMA Records
2023

buy

We Rise

From: Magic Light
By Sara Caswell

Knife's Edge

From: Renderings
By Sara Caswell

Spaghetti Western

From: Chicken Or Pasta
By Sara Caswell

South Shore

From: The Way To You
By Sara Caswell

The Miss

From: For Now
By Sara Caswell

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