Congratulations to Sandy Evans who has just been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research performance, composition and pedagogy in intercultural music between jazz musicians and Indian musicians.
Sandy has been studying Indian music with a particular interest in Carnatic (South Indian Classical) music dating back to 1996 when she toured India with the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO). She had the privilege of collaborating with the virtuoso South Indian mridangam player Guru Karaikudi R. Mani.
Since then Sandy has continued to study Carnatic music and perform in Australia, India and Europe with many jazz and Indian musicians who share an interest in developing a meaningful fusion of Indian and Western ideas. This has included ongoing lessons and performances with Sydney based singer and sitar player Sarangan Sriranganathan and a month long study tour to Chennai in January 2009 where she studied with Guru Karaikudi R. Mani and flautist B.V. Balasai. Multi-instrumentalist Adrian Sherriff has been seminal in my interest in this field.
In 2008 Bobby Singh, Ben Walsh and Sarangan Sriranganathan joined myself, Tony Gorman and Steve Elphick in ‘Citizens of Earth’ exploring interfaces between jazz and contemporary improvised music. We performed at The Factory for Places and Spaces in a concert recorded for ABC Radio National and broadcast on Music Deli. We performed at The Gods at ANU with this ensemble in 2009. View video
In 2010 Sarangan and Bobby joined the Sandy Evans trio to perform at the inaugural Jazz visions festival for SIMA to critical acclaim.
Sandy performed with the AAO and South Indian ensemble Sruthi Laya at the Parramasala Festival, the OzAsia Festival and The Melbourne Recital Centre where one of her compositions, The Sacred Cow’s Tail was featured. A CD “The Chennai Sessions” documenting this collaboration has been released. This group has also completed 2 tours of India.
In 2010 Sandy performed in Adrian Sherriff’s Five Elements in Australia and at the Australian High Commission in Delhi for the launch of the Parramasala Festival.
In 2011 The Sandy Evans Indian Project performed at Camelot, at the Sound Lounge for SIMA, and in a live broadcast for Sunday Live on ABC Classic FM.
This is an ongoing project featuring Bobby Singh and Sarangan Sriranganathan with jazz musicians Brett Hirst and Toby Hall. This group will be releasing a CD in the next year.
Sandy is currently undertaking a PhD at Macquarie University researching the fusion of jazz and Carnatic music.
More information from Sandy's website
