Results for "Folk"

Anais Drago

Anaïs Drago is an Italian violinist and performer, born in Biella in 1993.

Winner of Top jazz 2022 (referendum organized by Musica Jazz magazine) in the new proposals section, she moves between the sounds of free improvisation, electroacoustic music, jazz, pop.

Awarded with first prize in Seifert Competition 2024, international contest dedicated to jazz string players, her name was included in 2023 and 2024 annual poll by New York-based magazine Downbeat as rising star in violin section.

She has performed as a leader on some of thee most important jazz festivals’ stages in Italy, including Umbria Jazz, Time in Jazz, Turin Jazz Festival, Bergamo Jazz Festival, Casa del Jazz, JazzMI, Fano Jazz by the sea, Novara Jazz, and abroad, as for Münster Jazz Festival (DE) and Canal Street Festival (NO).

Boris Grubesic

Born: July 24, 1991

Boris Grubesic, based in Stockholm, Sweden, is a guitarist and songwriter whose music blends folk, jazz, improvisational elements and pop. Influenced by guitarists and composers like Marc Ribot, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Leo Kottke, Barney Kessel, and Agustin Pereyra Lucena, Boris creates a unique musical narrative.

His debut solo album, 'Stundom,' released on June 19th, 2024, features a collection of guitar compositions with short tunes and improvisations.

Boris is also a member of the bands Mata Kopa and Smiling Man.

Matt Hayden

F. August Bish

Nicol River

Born: December 3, 1997

Nicol River is a composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist and director. She has recorded an album of jazz standards and has released several singles which have received an overwhelmingly positive response by her audience.

Nicol River's music can be described as 'contemporary folk', as she draws her inspiration from traditional music across the world including Balkan, Indian, Celtic and Nordic music, and translates it all to modern arrangements. Her lyrics delve into the philosophical complexities of life and death, joy and sorrow, spread across experimental harmonies and atypical time signatures.

​Nicol is the Director of River Music School London, the founder and co-organiser of the Young Cats Jazz Workshop at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, and a governor at the Wandle Learning Trust.

Nicky Schrire

Born: August 22

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. 

Lorenzo Cellupica

Born: August 16, 1992

Lorenzo Cellupica was born in 1992 in Frosinone (Italy). He’s a pianist, keyboardist, composer and music teacher from Isola del Liri (Frosinone). He began to study at a local music school and carried on his own from the age of 13 till 25. His studies ranged from classical music to jazz, from rock to pop. In 2011 he won a contest for emerging bands in Alvito (FR) called Non solo Jazz (“Not Only Jazz”) with his band Yellowcake. In 2015 he was chosen as the best musicians by the newspaper TG24 for partecipating at a contest organised by the music school Industrie Sonore in Isola del Liri, where he played some original compositions for piano solo

Kenny Wesley

Born: September 1

He is a songwriter, pianist, vocalist with a range spanning more than four octaves, and a linguist who speaks five languages. His name is Kenny Wesley. With three acclaimed projects, numerous accolades, collaborations, compilation features, and high-profile performances under his belt, including a win as a finalist, and the United States representative, for the 2013 Montreux Jazz Festival’s Shure Vocal Competition, Kenny has firmly placed his stamp on the burgeoning modern music movement.

His songs, fusing elements of electronic, jazz, funk, classical, folk and gospel, have been prominently featured on radio, film and TV – including the FOX series So You Think You Can Dance.  A welcomed guest to festivals and legendary venues across the globe such as SXSW, The Kennedy Center, Southport Weekender, Jazz Cafe London, Blues Alley, A-Trane, Montreux Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scotts, The White House, National Cherry Blossom Festival, Jazz à Vienne, The Blue Note, Bohemian Caverns, and The Apollo Theatre Cafe, he has shared the stage with numerous artists and musicians including Maysa (Incognito), the B52s, Vinx, Rachelle Ferrell, Kurt Elling, Sheila Jordan, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Giacomo Gates, Vikter Duplaix, Leela James, Charnett Moffett, Frédéric Yonnet (Prince, Stevie Wonder), Mino Cinélu (Miles Davis, Weather Report), Federico Peña (Marcus Miller, Meshell Ndegeocello), Stephanie Mills, Regina Belle, Zo!, Carmen Rodgers, Phonte (Little Brother, The Foreign Exchange), Alice Smith, Eric Roberson, Kindred and The Family Soul, N’Dambi and Syleena Johnson.

Zosha Warpeha

Pedro Isea Herrera

Born: October 28, 1971

Pedro Isea is a Venezuelan musician born in Caracas in October 28th 1971 who very early started to make vocal music and play the venezuelan cuatro and percussion for vocal groups in his school and university. He began music studies in 1982 in Padre Sojo music school in Caracas and developed a ten years career singing and making percussion for different choirs.

Since 1994 he studied afro-venezuelan and latin percussion (congas) for five years with the professors Alexander Livinalli (multiple participations), Jesús Paiva (Vasallos del Sol), William Troconis (La Banda Sigilosa, Grupo Maroa, La Platabanda...) and Manuel Moreno (Grupo Herencia) at the Popular Culture School of Bigott Foundation and in the UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela). In 1995 he founded “Mestizos Ensamble” with the pianist and singer Alicia Dávila recording 6 tracks which were showed in radio and TV programs. In that year he studied Jazz history and vocal percussion.