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Sara Serpa

As a native of Lisbon, Portugal, and currently living in New York, vocalist and composer Sara Serpa has lived around music all her life. While in her teens she attended the Conservatory of Music in Lisbon, studying piano and singing, setting the basis of her musical vocabulary. When facing the challenge of choosing a career, Serpa entered a Psychology College, graduating in Social Work. Her musical desires remained alive during this period and soon she encountered jazz at Hot Clube Jazz School in Lisbon. Serpa’s aspirations of seeking more knowledge and challenges eventually brought her to Boston where she attended Berklee College of Music and later the New England Conservatory, where she received her Masters in Jazz Performance in 2008. Among her teachers were a very celebrated cast of luminaries such as Danilo Perez, Ran Blake, Dominique Eade, Theo Bleckmann, Hal Crook and Jerry Bergonzi.

From the time Serpa arrived to Boston, she has kept her yearning to learn and for developing her own voice as a composer and improviser. Serpa is a singer of a new generation who seeks out challenges in order to grow. Her ability to navigate through demanding, instrumental music and improvise over complex chord progressions is amazingly natural. As a composer Serpa has a unique approach to sound and emotional depth: she creates melodies that seem to tell everyone a different story and at the same time leave her own signature. The fact that she sings mostly wordless music, going beyond the traditional scat technique, is also part of her creative style. It is no mystery that her compositions and singing have established her prematurely as a pillar among many young jazz musicians.

Very recently Ms. Serpa became a new member of Greg Osby’s band, being the first native Portuguese musician to perform at the famous Village Vanguard in New York. Her recording participations include the latest Greg Osby’s album, “9 Levels”, released by Inner Circle Music, and also the guitarist André Matos “Rosa Shock” to be released by Tone of a Pitch. Serpa’s first album “Praia” has been released by Inner Circle Music as well.

For the past years, Sara Serpa has shared stages with an expanding circle of musicians including Greg Osby, John Lockwood, André Matos, Demian Cabaud, Jesse Chandler, Ferenc Nemeth, Matt Pavolka, Pete Rende, Esperanza Spalding, Nick Falk, Peter Slavov, Aruan Ortiz, Leo Genovese, Albert Sanz, Masa Kamaguchi, RJ Miller, Vardan Ovsepian, Nelson Cascais, Bruno Pedroso, Andre Sousa Machado, and Andreia Pinto Correia.

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Album Review

Sara Serpa & André Matos: Night Birds

Read "Night Birds" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Night Birds, singer Sara Serpa and guitarist André Matos' third album together, offers an ethereal program of compositions written by the duo, separately and together. They are joined on various tracks by Brooklyn-based pianist-composer Dov Manski, South Korean avant-garde cellist Okkyung Lee, Swedish experimental singer Sofia Jernberg, Portuguese drummer João Pereira, and their young son Lourenço. The album concludes with a Béla Bartók bagatelle. To begin with the intriguing closer, the Bartók is performed quite simply, twice, with ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Jazz Meets Folk, Folk Meets Jazz

Read "Jazz Meets Folk, Folk Meets Jazz" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


This show looks at some of the many cross-pollinations between jazz and folk music. There are jazz musicians like Dave Brubeck and Dave Douglas dabbling in folk forms and folk musicians like Pentangle and Dave Van Ronk exercising their jazz chops. There are also pieces based on folk musics outside of the usual Anglo-American axis. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Jazz And Poetry Plus Notable 2021 Releases, Part 2

Read "Jazz And Poetry Plus Notable 2021 Releases, Part 2" reviewed by Mary Foster Conklin


This broadcast presents new releases from Dee Bell and The Greenaway Group featuring vocalist Carla Cook, with a focus in the second hour on the heady combination of Jazz with spoken word featuring recent recordings by Sara Serpa, Jazzmeia Horn, a preview single from Javon Jackson's latest album plus part 2 of a look back to notable albums made in 2021 despite the disruption of the pandemic. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their ...

3
Album Review

Sara Serpa: Recognition

Read "Recognition" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


A lot of people have started to come to grips with shameful parts of their national heritage in recent times. In America, that has meant protests against displays of the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate Civil War generals. For Portuguese-born vocalist and composer Sara Serpa, dealing with her heritage has taken a more personal form with Recognition, a multi-media work dealing with Portugal's history of colonial oppression and subjugation of native peoples in Angola. The piece has ...

Album Review

Sara Serpa: Close Up

Read "Close Up" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Finalmente un album pienamente convincente della cantante portoghese (qui anche autrice di tutto il materiale tematico), spesso preziosa, nella sua produzione, ma altrove (anche all'interno di uno stesso lavoro, suo o altrui) un po' disarticolata, quasi schizoide, magari solo curiosa, e comunque alterna nella resa in concreto. Sarà senz'altro anche merito dei due musicisti che l'affiancano, fatto sta che questo suo ultimo album, live alla Pete's House di Brooklyn nel giugno 2017, convince senza arzigogoli o avvitamenti (critici, estetici) di ...

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Multiple Reviews

Clean Feed 2018

Read "Clean Feed 2018" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Since it's inception in 2002, Lisbon, Portugal's Clean Feed Records has released nearly 500 recordings. Last year the total was 64. Keeping up with their output might be the best way to follow innovative jazz and improvised music in the 21st century. Besides releasing music by masters such as Peter Brotzmann, Joe McPhee, Ivo Perelman, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Braxton, and Rudresh Mahanthappa, they have introduced world audiences to the talents of Rodrigo Amado, Luís Lopes, Dre Hočevar, Gard Nilssen, and ...

4
Album Review

Sara Serpa: Close Up

Read "Close Up" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa has been a significant presence on the New York jazz scene for several years now, creating music with literary and artistic allusions in the company of renowned musicians like Ran Blake, Nicole Mitchell and Tyshawn Sorey. For her latest project she leads a trio that also features saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and cellist Erik Friedlander. The music they make together, with Serpa often singing wordlessly, creates an airy tapestry of sound. On “Sol Enganador" Friedlander ...

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Education

New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies And Contemporary Musical Arts Departments Announce Fall 2023 Concerts Featuring Expansive Programming Across Genres

New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies And Contemporary Musical Arts Departments Announce Fall 2023 Concerts Featuring Expansive Programming Across Genres

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

New England Conservatory (NEC) announces an expansive fall season of performances, featuring a diverse roster of ensembles and programming. Ensembles large and small perform in NEC’s world-class venues, including Jordan Hall and the Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre. Jazz Studies welcomes award winning vocalist and alum Sara Serpa for a residency focusing on her acclaimed multi-media work Intimate Strangers. Other fall highlights include a residency with NEA Jazz Master bassist Dave Holland and two concerts by the NEC Jazz Orchestra, ...

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Radio

The Jazz Session #212: Sara Serpa

The Jazz Session #212: Sara Serpa

Source: AAJ Staff


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Performance / Tour

Greg Osby and Sara Serpa Perform at the Village Vanguard

Greg Osby and Sara Serpa Perform at the Village Vanguard

Source: Michael Ricci

A Progressive Who Knows How to Be Here Now

The alto saxophonist Greg Osby has routinely been assessed over the last 20 years as a jazz progressive, the sort of musician who constantly pushes forward. In postbop terms that's high praise, and a kind of trap. It respects the intent of innovation but places a premium on the results, devaluing any effort that isn't a bridge to new terrain. On Tuesday, in the first set of what Mr. Osby described ...

"She's unique beyond words" —Boston Globe

"A bright young Portuguese singer" —New York Times

"She's the freshest vocalist on the scene at the moment" —All About Jazz

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Night Birds

Robalo Records
2024

buy

Intimate Strangers

Biophilia Records
2021

buy

Recognition

Biophilia Records
2020

buy

Imagined Sky

Whirlwind Recordings
2020

buy

Close Up

Clean Feed Records
2018

buy

Get Up And Go

Jazz Family
2017

buy

Carlos

From: Night Birds
By Sara Serpa

Night

From: Intimate Strangers
By Sara Serpa

Lei Do Indigenato, 1914

From: Recognition
By Sara Serpa

Object

From: Close Up
By Sara Serpa

Object

From: Close Up
By Sara Serpa

Rios

From: Primavera
By Sara Serpa

Videos

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