WEDNESDAY 20 MAY - album launch Tell it like it is
"Another instalment of Joanne Kee's marvellous Places+Spaces programme, at Marrickville's comfortable, warm and welcoming Factory Theatre was Mark Isaacs' Resurgence Band, featuring Isaacs on piano; the scintillating, award-winning James Muller, guitar; Matt Keegan, (soprano, alto and tenor) sax; Brett Hirst, bass; and Tim Firth, drums." extract from Australian Stage review by Brad Sykes READ MORE
The intensity of the collective belief in the project was evident immediately, the leader’s first solo having an almost frightening intensity to it, while still exuding a tangible and effecting beauty… This band must be heard – John Shand, SMH.
Isaacs, with every release, has refined his systematic approach to post-modernity jazz to the point that his sound defines what jazz should sound like at the advent of the 21st Century – All About Jazz (USA).
The Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band was formed in 2007 and have toured extensively in Australia and Asia, performing at the 2007 Queensland Music Festival followed by appearances in Japan at the Sapporo Jazz Festival and the Ikspiari jazz club in Tokyo as well as Thailand and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz.
Mark Isaacs led his Resurgence band through an all-new original repertoire that coaxed some superb playing from all five musicians – The Age (Melbourne).
Mark Isaacs (piano) James Muller (guitar) Matt Keegan (sax) Brett Hirst (bass) Tim Firth (drums)
Mark Isaacs (b. 1958) has achieved international recognition as a pianist and composer in both jazz and classical music. As a jazz pianist he has toured extensively in Europe, Russia, Asia, the USA, Australasia and the Pacific performing at major festivals and working and recording with some of the artform's most distinguished international figures while releasing many internationally-acclaimed CDs. He was nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album in 2007. As a classical concert hall composer he has composed around 80 major works ranging across orchestral, chamber, choral and solo pieces (most recently for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Saffire, Sydney Philharmonia Choir and Tankstream Quartet). He is a recipient of an Australia Council Fellowship, a prize-winner in the Tokyo International Competition for Chamber Music Composition, the winner of the inaugural Miriam Hyde Composer-Pianist Award and the 2007 Albert H. Maggs Composition Award from the University of Melbourne and he holds a Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, USA. He curates the Brisbane Jazz Festival, has performed as a classical pianist and conducted his compositions. He won the 2008 APRA/Amcos award for best instrumental composition – Walk a Golden Mile and lives in Sydney with his wife and daughter.
Images courtesy of Noni Carroll
Other concerts in the series
Thursday 15th October - Australian Art Orchestra, Into the Fire, a fusion of Indian music and jazz @ the the Factory
Friday 27th November - Taikoz/Topology/Karak, Japanese drumming, the Australian Way and the talents of Topology, one of the foremost contemporary music ensembles and Karak @ the Enmore Theatre
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