Ahead of the official program launch in mid-March, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival have let slip a few early details, announcing the headline artists for the opening and closing night of this year’s instalment of the festival.
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival will present jazz wunderkind Esperanza Spalding in her Australian debut, opening the 2016 Festival with her groundbreaking new project, Emily’s D+Evolution.
From Spalding’s early years performing with the likes of Joe Lovano and Wayne Shorter, to the international successes of her Chamber Music Society and Radio Music Society albums, the young bassist/vocalist/composer has continually blazed unmarked territory. Her announcement as Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy® Awards – an unprecedented win in that category by a jazz musician – has become the theme of Spalding’s musical life, setting her apart as the most important new voice in jazz today.
Spalding’s new project, Emily’s D+Evolution, maintains her passion for seeking out new sounds and making the unprecedented her norm. Born out of a “sleepless night of full moon inspiration,” Emily’s D+Evolution rekindles Spalding’s childhood interest in theatre, poetry and movement through a series of musical vignettes, which magically unfold in a whimsical mixture of performance, video and text.
Meanwhile, Wayne Shorter, a musician who is responsible for some of the most revolutionary jazz of the 20th century, will be teaming up with three of the world’s finest jazz musicians – Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade – for an evening of unrivalled virtuosity to close out the 2016 festival.
Composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter has for over fifty years shattered the limitations of jazz with his transcendent musicality. His iconic body of work as a solo artist, as a part of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet and fusion pioneers Weather Report, has defined and redefined jazz for generations. No matter what superlatives are thrown Shorter’s way, nothing compares to the experience of a live performance from a musician who the New York Times has dubbed “jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser”.
Tickets to these two special performances go on sale Thursday 11th February and can be found HERE
Esperanza Spalding presents Emily’s D+Evolution
3rd June 2016 – Forum Theatre – 930pm
Tickets: $81 – $90.57 (plus transaction fee)
Wayne Shorter Quartet
12th June 2016 – Hamer Hall, Melbourne Arts Centre – 730pm
Tickets: $89 – $152.77 (plus transaction fee)
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