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Nicky Schrire

Nicky Schrire is a multitalented and inventive British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Esperanza Spalding with The Boston Globe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial…she’s got her own thing, and it’s very much worth listening to.”

A graduate of the South African College of Music and New York’s Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Anthea Haupt, Peter Eldridge, Theo Bleckmann, and Dave Liebman. Schrire has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Dublin and South Africa, with musicians including Ben Wendel, Gerald Clayton, Fabian Almazan, Nir Felder, and Taylor Eigsti. She released three critically acclaimed jazz albums-2012's "Freedom Flight", 2013's "Space and Time", and the 2014 EP "To The Spring"-which earned her comparisons to songwriters like Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her duo album “Space & Time” featured Grammy-nominated pianists Gerald Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Fabian Almazan. The Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum described the recording as “fifty minutes of emotionally eventful, richly crafted music”.

Performance highlights include headlining the 2018 Cape Town International Jazz Festival, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Centre for Carnegie Hall’s Ubuntu Festival, performances in the UK at Royal Festival Hall and the Vortex, and having her composition ESCAPE: The Ingrid Jonker Suite programmed for the 2022 String Quartet Biennale in Amsterdam (sadly cancelled due to COVID).

Schrire was delighted to be awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant to record her new album "Nowhere Girl", to be released on 9 June 2023 on Anzic Records. Produced by Grammy-nominated producer Oded Lev-Ari, the album features a rhythm section comprising Canadian trio Myriad3 (Ernesto Cervini, Dan Fortin, Chris Donnelly), saxophonist Tara Davidson, guest vocalist Laila Biali, and Mozambican guitarist Julio Sigauque (Freshlyground).

As a journalist and broadcaster, Schrire was a contributing host and producer for Toronto’s JazzFM.91 station, creating and presenting the weekly segment "This Bright North" from 2021 to 2022. She has been a contributing journalist for LondonJazz News for over a decade, covering the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival and starting the "Mothers In Jazz" series. 

As a podcaster, she produced and hosted the 14th season of the original jazz interview podcast “The Jazz Session, interviewing guests like Maria Schneider, Terence Blanchard, Artemis and Gretchen Parlato. She recently completed a contract as Associate Producer at CBC Music/CBC Radio.

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Radio & Podcasts

Holiday releases By Jae Sinnett, George Burton, Gregory Porter, Nicky Schrire, Aubrey Logan Plus A Celebration of Bob Dorough's Centennial

Read "Holiday releases By Jae Sinnett, George Burton, Gregory Porter, Nicky Schrire, Aubrey Logan Plus A Celebration of Bob Dorough's Centennial" reviewed by Mary Foster Conklin


This broadcast includes new music from Sarah L. King, with holiday releases from Jae Sinnett, George Burton, Gregory Porter, Nicky Schrire, Aubrey Logan, plus birthday shoutouts to Beegie Adair, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, with a special nod to Jazz Master Bob Dorough for his centennial. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire. Playlist Jae Sinnett's Zero ...

3
Album Review

Nicky Schrire: Nowhere Girl

Read "Nowhere Girl" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


The search for identity is a sine qua non of any artist's experience and development. But for a musician like Nicky Schrire, it goes much deeper than most. Born in London, raised in South Africa, studying and entering the professional ranks in New York and working back through her initial points of origin before relocating to Toronto in 2020, this noted vocalist-composer has established herself as a globetrotter of the first order. Stylistically, as with geography, Schrire hits multiple points ...

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Interview

Nicky Schrire: Permission to Be Yourself

Read "Nicky Schrire: Permission to Be Yourself" reviewed by Seton Hawkins


To follow the recordings of Cape Town-based vocalist and composer Nicky Schrire is to watch an artist evolve right in front of your eyes. With her 2012 debut Freedom Flight, Schrire demonstrated a supple soprano vocal technique and a knack for intelligent arrangements of unusual repertoire choices. Following it up the next year with Space and Time, she showed an uncanny ability to pare songs and performances down to their very essence, cutting away to reveal emotional truths ...

10
Interview

Nicky Schrire: On Songs, Spaces And Places

Read "Nicky Schrire: On Songs, Spaces And Places" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


What defines power? That's a tough question to answer in general, and an even harder one to figure out when it comes to the world of music. For in music, a whisper may carry greater weight than a roar, an honest gesture can outdo a demonstration of brute strength and technique, and a direct message to the heart can mean more than a shot of adrenaline aimed at the same place. It's the sonorous David-topples-Goliath scenario, where vocalists with strong ...

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Album Review

Nicky Schrire: To The Spring

Read "To The Spring" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


It's brief--barely 30 minutes long--and released only in digital form, but To The Spring packs plenty into its allotted time span. This is the third release from singer and songwriter Nicky Schrire. It's another excellent release, her voice framed by the sparse but sympathetic piano and bass of Fabian Almazan and Desmond White. Schrire's voice matures and grows more confident with every release. It's technically impressive, but more importantly it's striking in its ability to inhabit and project ...

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Live Review

Nicky Schrire Quartet at Raphael Vineyard

Read "Nicky Schrire Quartet at Raphael Vineyard" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Nicky Schrire Quartet Raphael Vineyard Long Island Winterfest Peconic, NY February 22, 2014 Long Island Winterfest, which puts musical acts in wineries for six straight weekends during the bleak midwinter, is a boon to the economy and cultural atmosphere of the East End. It truly helps to drum up business during the off season, as locals and visitors drop into the vineyards to sip some vino while soaking in the sounds of the ...

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Album Review

Nicky Schrire: Space And Time

Read "Space And Time" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


New York City-based jazz vocalist Nicky Schrire has two albums to her credit. Freedom Flight (Circavision Productions, 2012) was well received by AAJ colleague Dan Bilawsky, who explained her fresh and well-scrubbed appeal thusly: “The London-born, South African-raised, New York-based vocalist bursts onto the scene with this dazzling debut, but she didn't simply materialize out of thin air. This worldly woman has been honing her skills at the Manhattan School of Music and studying with the crème de la crème ...

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Recording

Vocalist And Songwriter Nicky Schrire Leads Canadian Quartet On 'Nowhere Girl,' First Album In Ten Years

Vocalist And Songwriter Nicky Schrire Leads Canadian Quartet On 'Nowhere Girl,' First Album In Ten Years

Source: Nicky Schrire

Blurring the lines between jazz, singer-songwriter and folk traditions, ‘Nowhere Girl’ is the shimmering new quartet album from British/South African/Canadian vocalist and songwriter Nicky Schrire. RELEASED 9 JUNE 2023 ON ANZIC RECORDS Vocalist and composer Nicky Schrire was born in London and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. She moved to New York City to attend the Manhattan School of Music and, after nearly five years in the city, returned to Cape Town via London. She relocated to Toronto, ...

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Recording

Circavision Productions Releases Nicky Schrire's "Freedom Flight"

Circavision Productions Releases Nicky Schrire's "Freedom Flight"

Source: Brian Shankar Adler

Vocalist & composer celebrates a fresh and vibrant take on the Jazz vocal tradition New York, NY: Nicky Schrire, a vocalist and composer with a “warm, honey-rich voice” (Peter Eldridge) will release her debut album, ‘Freedom Flight’ on May 22, 2012 via Circavision Productions. The album includes eleven tracks that Schrire both arranged and produced. Two of the tracks (“Journey” and “Ode To A Folk Song”) are original songs that are complimented by an array of classics including Lennon/McCartney’s “Freedom ...

“… Schrire becomes part of the fabric of her music. Her voice is a warm and supple instrument that serves as a dispensary of emotional power.” -Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz (USA) “[Schrire] is quite self-assured, trusts her judgment so that each piece stands out…Recordings like "Freedom Flight" make me glad to be alive.” -Richard Kamins, Step Tempest (USA) “Freedom Flight should have released under a major label's auspices, as Schrire's voice is…an instrument transcending laryngeal norms…” -Mark S. Tucker, FAME (USA) “Freedom Flight” is vocalist Nicky Schrire’s debut album, but it sounds like the work of a seasoned veteran… Clever and understated… It is an exceptional debut.” -Steven Lewis, Hardbop Jazz Journal (USA) "If you have been hooked by the new vocalists like Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, check out Nicky Schrire – she’s on her way…" -Peter Bacon, The Jazz Breakfast (UK) “It's not an easy voice to pigeon-hole which speaks volumes for her originality… Schrire seemingly effortlessly, and frequently wordlessly, gets to the heart of each number stripping it bare and re-shaping it into something new.” -Lance Liddle, BeBop Spoken Here (UK) "With a clear, clean, beautifully vibrato-less soprano and ample control of her pitch, Schrire brings together the essence of some of my favorites among modern creative vocalists—Kendra Shank’s global approach to song, Kate McGarry’s vocalese, and Norma Winstone’s inventive spirit, all with a vocal quality in the realm of Sara Gazarek." -Andrea Canter, Jazz Police (USA) “This eleven track marvel (“Freedom Flight”) has Schrire proving she is one of those rare undeniable triple threats as vocalist, producer and arranger… An artist that moves effortlessly from singer to story teller with such ease and grace that the listener is almost taken by surprise.” -Brent Black, Critical Jazz (USA) “Schrire is a skilled arranger – clever without being precious, always serving the song…”Freedom Flight” [is filled] with moments that remind us of the power of the human voice and its ability to tell a story.” -Jason Crane, The Jazz Session (USA) “Nicky Schrire has a warm, honey-rich voice…a naturally engaging stage presence, a distinctive sound, assurance and focus - and besides all that, she is someone who will undoubtedly win you over with her charm, humour and empathy.” -Peter Eldridge, Founding member of The New York Voices (USA)

Primary Instrument

Vocals

Location

Toronto

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

Somatic Voice Work™, The LoVetri Method Level 1 Certified 2011 Manhattan School of Music Distance Learning Center South African Association for Jazz Education Outreach Teaching University of KwaZulu Natal Rustenburg Girls High School South African College of Music, UCT

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Nowhere Girl

Anzic Records
2023

buy

To The Spring

Self Produced
2014

buy

Space And Time

Magenta Label Group
2013

buy

Freedom Flight

Circavision Productions
2012

buy

Feel Good Song...

Self Produced
0

buy

Traveler

From: Nowhere Girl
By Nicky Schrire

Love Is For The Birds

From: Nowhere Girl
By Nicky Schrire

Here Comes The Sun

From: Space And Time
By Nicky Schrire

Feel Good Song

From: Feel Good Song (Single)
By Nicky Schrire

Freedom Flight / Blackbird

From: Freedom Flight
By Nicky Schrire

Videos

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