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Alina Bzhezhinska
Alina studied at the F. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland (Masters in Arts), and The University of Arizona, USA (Masters in Music Performance). She has performed with many major European orchestras including the Young World Symphony Orchestra, the National Opera in Warsaw and the Scottish Opera.
Continuing her career in London, Bzhezhinska has become one of the most innovative international jazz harpists. She has collaborated and recorded with leading jazz musicians: such as Django Bates, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Niki King and Henry Wu. Alina’s London appearances include Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, live on BBC Radio 3, the London Jazz Festival and the London Film Festival. Her duo with award-winning jazz vocalist Niki King performed as a support act for Gregory Porter.
She also performed at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Glasgow Jazz Festival and the World Harp Congress in Sydney, Australia.
Alina Bzhezhinska Quartet appeared at the London Jazz Festival 2017 in a triple bill performance along with Coltrane’ s specialist Denys Baptist and the legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders.
Bzhezhinska has recorded a solo album called “Harp Recital” and appeared at recordings of American harp ensemble Harp Fusion and Wisniewski / Stevenson jazz group “New Focus”. Her jazz quartet album INSPIRATION will be released by Ubuntu Music in Spring 2018.
Alina is a harp tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Goldsmiths University, London.
She is also very passionate about charity work and actively collaborates with Ukrainian organisation Initiative E+.
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Ganavya: Forgive Me My
by Chris May
London-based multi-reedist Shabaka Hutchings' interest in South and East Asian music, which recently manifested itself with his embarkation on an in-depth study of Japanese shakuhachi flutes, continues to spread its wings. Hutchings does not play on singer and composer Ganavya's meditative single Forgive Me My," but he produced the track and it is released on his Native Rebel Recordings label. An album will be released later in 2023. Meanwhile, you can hear Forgive Me My" on the YouTube below.
read moreAlina Bzhezhinska & HipHarpCollective: Reflections
by Chris May
In an inspired piece of programming, London's Barbican Centre presented the then virtually unknown harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and her quartet as one of the support bands on its November 18, 2017 one-nighter A Concert for Alice and John, a show headlined by Pharoah Sanders. It would be an exaggeration to say Bzhezhinska stole the show (see Pharoah Sanders" above), but she was sensational, offering up fresh readings of Alice Coltrane tunes and a few originals, accompanied by Tony Kofi on ...
read moreAlina Bzhezhinska Quartet At Regional Cultural Centre
by Ian Patterson
Alina Bzhezhinska Quartet Regional Cultural Centre Letterkenny, Ireland February 15, 2020 History owes Alice Coltrane much more than the moniker of John Coltrane's wife." Alina Bzhezhinska makes the point early on to the Letterkenny audience, on this, the final night of her quartet's ten-date Irish tour. A fine, pianist, harpist composer and bandleader, Alice Coltrane was, Bzhezhinska says, a significant figure in her own right, not least for the forty or so albums ...
read moreAlina Bzhezhinska: Inspiration
by Roger Farbey
There have been precious few harpists in jazz. Dorothy Ashby was one, David Snell who made a memorable contribution to John Dankworth's What The Dickens! (Fontana Records, 1963) was another. But surely the most famous of them all was Alice Coltrane. So it is that Alina Bzhezhinska has dedicated this album to her heroine. It's a timely release too, as its recording dates in late 2017 marked the tenth anniversary of Alice Coltrane's passing and the fiftieth year since her ...
read moreAlina Bzhezhinska: Inspiration
by Chris May
Among the highpoints of London's 2017 jazz diary was the Barbican Centre's A Concert for Alice and John. The event commemorated the 50th and 10th anniversaries of the passing of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane. It was headlined by Pharoah Sanders, the most distinguished surviving member of bands led by the Coltranes, who turned in an unforgettable set which ranged from an exquisite A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square" through a fiery North Africanised version of John Coltrane's Olé" featuring ...
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