BEST OF 2011 AND LOOKING AHEAD 2012…
2011 has been a great year!! Here are some musical highlights.
EUROPE TOUR
Touring in Europe at the beginning of the year meant re-connecting with wonderful musicians and friends: Raymond MacDonald, Joe Williamson, Christopher Cantillo and Daniel Rorke. We played concerts in Scotland, England, Sweden and Norway (a first). There are some excellent recordings from this tour. Look out for several new releases next year, and some audio highlights to be posted very soon (promise!) on this site.
SATOKO FUJI
In June, excellent composer and improvising pianist Satoko Fujii was in Australia for The Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Satoko and I recorded a piano duo set for ABC Radio 'Into The Music'. This is due to be broadcast on Radio National in December/January (you can follow this link to listen to one of the tracks (http://abcjazz.net.au/features/piano-duets-alister-spence-satoko-fujii). Satoko and I first met and performed together in 2008 when The Alister Spence Trio was in Tokyo for The Tokyo Jazz Festival. We look forward to working more as a duo, and hpe to have some music to release on CD soon.
ALISTER SPENCE TRIO: AUSTRALIAN HIGHLIGHTS
The AS Trio has had a good year here in Australia; weaving around each member's busy schedules. The concert at the inaugural Capital City Jazz Festival in Canberra in August was a ripper! We have had a good string of Sydney dates including our first (and long overdue) completely improvised concert at The People's Republic of Australasia; also a beauty. We are currently working on new material, which is sounding excellent and gearing up for another recording in the first half or 2012. The Trio has some dates coming up at Venue 505 in December and The Jazzgroove Festival in January (see live dates).
OTHER GOOD THINGS
Some of the other highlights of this year include:
- Playing solo piano sets at Bennetts Lane, Melbourne with Andrea Keller and Tim Stephens (March)
- Playing a debut set with Mike Majkowski and Finn Ryan in a new open music trio MRS at the Hellosquare Peking Spring Festival in Canberra (May 2011: a great recording from this gig! TBA).
- Playing with The Mute Canary Project at the Powerhouse in Brisbane (May 2011).
- Playing with Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura, Tatsuya Yoshida, Norikatsu Koreyasu and Akira Horikoshi at The Soundlounge, Sydney in June.
- Playing with extraordinary improviser Barre Phillips and Phil Slater and James Waples for The NowNow in October
- Reconnecting with Sandy Evans and recording and performing her new suite, When The Sky Cries Rainbows at The Wangaratta Jazz Festival in October.
- Learning much of Schubert's iconic Die Winterreise, then performing (from memory) reworking and improvising for a Malthouse play of the same name (toured Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane - March to October).
