I’ve decided that, instead of waiting until I’m on the road to add to this blog, I’d use it to keep you posted on what’s going on with my music and career. If you’d like to receive these occasional updates by email, please contact me.
I’m so pleased at the fantastic review Love and Beauty received from Tom Conrad in the current issue of JazzTimes. To read it online, click here. For info on the CD, go to www.robertajazz.com.
The Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra (SWOJO) has offered to purchase three of my big band arrangements of my compositions, including two arrangements of tunes from Love and Beauty. I’m very encouraged by this and will try to write more for jazz orchestra. It’s so time-consuming to write a big band chart – but very rewarding when it gets played! I’ll also try to post some samples of these arrangements at www.robertajazz.com in the near future. I haven’t really publicized them before, but my charts have always gotten positive feedback from my colleagues, and now this aspect of my musical life seems to be gathering its own momentum.
In November of 2007, the trio will be returning to the West coast for our third consecutive year. One of the most important ingredients in music is playing with the same people consistently for a long period of time. This is a very rare thing in the jazz world now. I’ve had this trio with Ratzo and Billy for a few years now, and audience members keep telling us it shows in the music.
In New York we can be heard on August 19th as part of the Harlem Meer Performance Festival at the Dana Discovery Center Central Park.
In May and June of 2007 I will be in Europe, performing with several fantastic musicians including the drummer Klaus Kugel in Germany and the guitarist Roland Heinz in Austria, and the drummer Andrea Marcelli in Berlin.
My work, “Five Poems by Nabokov” will be performed in New York on September 24 as part of the 21st Century Schizoid Music series curated by Frank Oteri of the American Music Center. The work, composed for mezzo-soprano, violin, piano and speaker, blends neo-classical harmonic concepts and free improvisational sections. Also apearing on that bill will be my trio with Ratzo and Billy. Hence the term “schizoid”! I look forward to this opportunity to stretch in different directions on the same night. What fun!