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Helen Sherrah-Davies
After many years as a noted classical performer and educator in her native Britain, five-string violinist and composer Helen Sherrah-Davies relocated to Boston, graduated from Berklee College of Music Summa Cum Laude (with the “Most Valuable Player” award) and is currently pursuing her Masters in Contemporary Improvisation at the New England Conservatory. StarStuff, her debut recording as a leader, is the fruit of her remarkable transatlantic quest, the fulfillment of a vibrant and seasoned artistic vision. Helen’s original works are trans-stylistic, jazz-infected, with a dynamic electric and acoustic mix, full of unexpected tone colors and sonorities. Her musical landscapes focus on storytelling, bathing the listener in prisms of sound.
Darol Anger, acclaimed fiddler, has described Helen’s music as “so strong, it approaches the status of a new sentient being…. Even in the most thorny, complex episodes, we are moved to care, laugh and rejoice, washed by waves of melodic love.”
Drawing on the improvisational freedom of jazz while incorporating rhythmic and formal devices from Bulgarian, Middle Eastern and other traditions, Helen follows a path of “eclectic inspiration, disparate sonic influences and the realm of theImagination.”
Helen began playing piano at age four, violin at age six. At age eight she won a scholarship to the prestigious Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, England. By 19 she earned performing diplomas on both instruments. She went on to an MA and PGCE at Cambridge University. Along with her activities as an educator (Bedales Junior School, St. Catharines School, Yehudi Menuhin School, The States of Jersey-Channel Islands), Helen pursued freelance orchestral work and regular string quartet performances, playing in venues such as Leeds Castle, the National History Museum and the Houses of Parliament (London). She spent two summers working in Italy with the Montepulciano Opera Festival Orchestra, performed at the wedding of “Posh Spice” Victoria to David Beckham in Ireland, worked with the singer Sam Brown and led a string quartet for Jon Lord (of Deep Purple) while performing his music in Zermatt, Switzerland.
Upon hearing jazz fiddler Mike Piggott in a Sussex pub, Helen became consumed with interest in improvisation, which her years of rigorous classical training did not address. She earned a Certificate and Diploma in Jazz and Popular Studies from Goldsmiths College, began performing and recording with artists such as Mike Hatchard, Herbie Flowers (Sky, T Rex) and guitarist Dylan Kay, and ultimately arrived in her current home of Boston, where she won praise from Mimi Rabson as “one of Berklee’s most original voices.”
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Darrell Katz & OddSong: Galeanthropolgy
by Jerome Wilson
OddSong is a chamber ensemble led by composer Darrell Katz, and distilled from the membership of the larger JCA Orchestra. It features vibraphone, violin, saxophones and voice, on music which veers between art songs and bluesy sax-led jazz tunes. Most of Katz's original compositions on this album feature poems by his late wife, poet Paula Tatarunis, but the tracks also stretch out to include songs by Jimi Hendrix, James Taylor, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington. Katz's original writing, ...
read moreThe JCA Orchestra: Live At The BPC
by Jerome Wilson
The JCA Orchestra has been an important part of the Boston jazz scene since it formed in 1985. Several of its recordings are dominated by the compositions of its leader, Darrell Katz, but this live concert from the Berklee Performance Center features works by several orchestra members other than Katz and gives a fuller picture of the orchestra's range. Violinist Mimi Rabson contributes two atmospheric pieces. Romanpole" is a musical culture clash inspired by the period when the ...
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From: OliviaBy Helen Sherrah-Davies