Scottish piano-saxophone partnership Euan Stevenson and Konrad Wiszniewski deliver their “New Focus: the Classical Connection” presentation to Watermill Jazz in Dorking on Tuesday 16 January. Preview characteristic by Rob Adams.

Pianist Euan Stevenson, who’s the co-writer and musical director with award-winning singer Georgia Cécile, and Konrad Wiszniewski, a long-time characteristic within the Scottish Nationwide Nationwide Jazz Orchestra’s saxophone part and co-leader of present Jazz FM favourites Mama Terra, have been working collectively underneath the New Focus banner since 2011. 

An Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Pageant fee to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Stan Getz’s traditional ‘with strings’ album, Focus, led to them forming a nonet – jazz quartet, string quartet and live performance harp – and including their very own compositions to tracks from Focus in an enthusiastically acquired live performance.

They subsequently recorded two albums of authentic music for Michael Janisch’s Whirlwind Recordings, New Focus and New Concentrate on Track, and have since labored in varied configurations together with nonet, jazz quartet and duo.

Their Classical Connection programme, which proved a success at Lichfield Pageant final summer time, combines the Birmingham Conservatoire-trained Stevenson’s love of classical music and the duo’s acclaimed work in jazz.

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“I’ve believed for a very long time that there are lots of hyperlinks between the 2 musical types,” says Stevenson, whose achievements in classical music embrace commissions for internationally famend violinist Pinchas Zukerman and the English Chamber Orchestra. “Classical composers and jazz composers typically are likely to favour the identical keys and the affect of composers reminiscent of Debussy and Satie on jazz musicians together with Miles Davis and Invoice Evans is kind of marked.”

These connections are identified with witty, informative hyperlinks however Stevenson is especially involved that the Classical Connection isn’t seen as a lecture recital. 

“We’re jazz musicians, so improvisation performs a giant half in these concert events,” he says. “We’d have enjoyable improvising a two-part, Bach type tackle a Gershwin customary however we like to stress the groove prospects and produce as a lot of the jazz custom to bear as potential.”

Music runs in Stevenson’s household. His grandmother, on whose Steinway piano Stevenson composes, was the primary lady to graduate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in Glasgow. One in all her cousins was the movie soundtrack conductor Muir Mathieson, who carried out the music from Temporary Encounter amongst greater than a thousand different movies. And one other cousin was the composer Cedric Thorpe Davie, who studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Zoltán Kodály and designed St Andrews College’s music course.

Stevenson’s jazz expertise contains concert events with guitarist Jim Mullen, fellow pianist Dave Newton and singers Tina Might and Zoe Francis and tutoring Scottish piano star Fergus McCreadie. He’s a eager pupil himself, continually studying from the masters – Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner and Invoice Evans are favourites – in addition to honing his personal type and composition abilities.

 “It’s been nice to see that the concept behind the Classical Connection travels,” says Stevenson. “The viewers in Lichfield have been fairly vociferous of their reward and the pageant director gave us a glowing reference. What’s significantly pleasing concerning the Classical Connection is that it appears to work in numerous conditions – be they jazz golf equipment or chamber music concert events. It’s actually about speaking and we’re actually trying ahead to presenting it for Watermill Jazz.”

LINKS: Watermill bookings for 16 January
Alison Bentley’s overview of New Focus from 2012
Patrick Hadfield’s overview of New Concentrate on Track from 2016