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Issie Barratt

Issie Barratt is an internationally active composer, arranger, conductor, baritone player, record producer and educator who has performed at a majority of leading venues in Northern Europe, south east India, central America and the east coast of Canada. She has been awarded many commissions from ensembles that include the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Bohuslän Big Band (Sweden), Norwegian Wind Ensemble, Voice of the North, Conservatoires UK Big Band and National Youth Choir of Great Britain, with her music often featuring international acclaimed soloists, frequently sharing the billing with fellow record label composers, Mike Gibbs and John Warren.

Issie’s music has been featured in many festivals and conferences, including the Cheltenham Jazz Festival’s 2001 Rising Star series, the Leeds International Jazz Conferences 2002-2007, the International Association of Jazz Educators conference 2008 in Toronto, Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2010, Montreux Jazz Festival 2010 and the International Real-time Music Symposium 2011 in Oslo and recorded by the Delta Sax Quartet (“Dedicated to you but you weren’t listening”), Bohuslän Big Band (“Letter to Billie”) and Vortex Foundation Big Band (“Charybdis”) as well as her own 21-piece jazz orchestra ("Astral Pleasures") and contemporary quartet ("The Meinrad Iten Suite") both recorded on her own record label www.fuzzymoonrecords.co.uk (established in 2008). In 2011 Issie was nominated for the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Awards for Artists

Issie is an extremely passionate and dedicated educator, setting up the highly successful Jazz Faculty at TrinityLaban in 1999 (which she headed until 2004) and the National Youth Jazz Collective in 2006 (working with school aged jazz musicians and their music leaders, supported by President Dave Holland and a team of 40 of the nations most inspirational jazz educators). A much sought after composition teacher, Issie continues to teach composition to undergraduate and post graduate conservatoire students, with her students regularly wining awards and prizes, such as the Dankworth Award in 2009, 2010 and 2011, BASCA’s new British Composer Award for jazz composition in 2010 and the Runswick Prize 2011 and 2012. She is also one of the five key tutors for the Sound and Music Summer School for Young Composers; adjudicator for Music for Youth’s National Festival of Music, Yamaha’s Jazz Experience, Watermill Jazz Young Composers Award and the Barbican/Lincoln Center Essentially Ellington; Trustee of Jazz Heritage Wales; elected member British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCAs) Concert and Jazz Executive Committee and an advisor for Jazz Services‘ Educational Advisory Panel.

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4
Album Review

Issie Barratt's Interchange: Donna's Secret

Read "Donna's Secret" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Put simply, this is a truly beautiful record. It features eight very different compositions by eight different women composers, including three from outside the band. In other hands, the diversity of styles might have left more an impression of a compilation than of a coherent, integrated programme of music. But that is certainly not the case here. What strikes immediately is the quality of the arrangements and ensembles. The textures are just sumptuous, almost tactile--and you know something's good when ...

3
Profile

Issie Barratt: Every Solo Is A New Invitation

Read "Issie Barratt: Every Solo Is A New Invitation" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Issie Barratt is one of the most significant jazz educators in Britain today. From 1999-2004, Barratt was head of Jazz at Trinity College of Music but her role as Artistic Director of the National Youth Jazz Collective has been of even greater importance in developing young jazz talent. Now in its, thirteenth year, NYJC goes from strength to strength with a faculty of over seventy tutors, including many of the finest musicians in the country. Crucial in our very male ...

10
What is Jazz?

BAN BAM: Talking Music

Read "BAN BAM: Talking Music" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Regular goers to jazz/improvised music gigs and festivals might have clocked the fact that those on stage tend to be predominantly male--a mirror, more often than not, of the make-up of the audience. Women instrumentalists are the exception rather than the norm. Though what exactly, we should perhaps ask ourselves when it comes to music and gender, is normal? This, and many other questions related to the gender imbalance in jazz/improvised music, are put under the microscope at ...

482
Album Review

Issie Barratt: Astral Pleasures

Read "Astral Pleasures" reviewed by Nic Jones


Composer/baritone saxophonist Issie Barratt's music is nothing if not distinctive. The balance it strikes between ensemble and soloists usually comes down on the side of the former. Soloists such as guitarist Mike Outram--whose work sometimes recalls Chris Spedding's in the early line-ups of trumpeter Ian Carr's band Nucleus--and saxophonist Mark Lockheart, however, ensure that there's enough stimulation for listeners whose interests fall into one camp or the other. Lockheart is a one-time member of the British band Loose Tubes, and ...

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“A great, great composer, who writes beautiful, beautiful music" (Julian Joseph Jazz Pianist and BBC presenter)

“Her amazing breadth of skills are just what the music world needs” (Mike Gibbs: Composer and arranger)

"Exciting and beautiful music: written with great knowledge and depth" (Anders Bergcrantz)

“Distinctive and memorable" (Leicester Mercury)

“Issie’s conducting gives the music a whole new lease of life and meaning." (Göran Levin Manager of the Bohuslän Big Band)

"The eccentric element came from Issie Barratt" (John Fordham, The Guardian)

"… often providing a welcome Mingus-like mayhem" (James Griffiths, The Guardian)

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Primary Instrument

Composer / conductor

Location

London

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Ex Head of Jazz at Trinity College of Music, London: Currently Jazz Fellow at Trinity College of Music, London, Composition professor for one to one students at Trinity, Leeds College of Music, Royal Academy of Music. Chief Executive of the National Youth Jazz Collective.

Clinic/Workshop Information

Large ensemble skills: As performer, musical director and composer.

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Donna's Secret

Fuzzy Moon Records
2020

buy

Astral Pleasures

Fuzzy Moon Records
2008

buy

Videos

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