Dr Sandy Evans
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Sandy is a saxophonist, composer, educator and music researcher with a passion for improvisation and new music.

She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s, toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia, and been featured on over 40 albums. She leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, and co-leads Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. She is a member of Mara!, The catholics, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), Ten Part Invention, austraLYSIS, Friends of Kim Sanders, Atma Blu, Waratah, Andrew Robson’s Tallis project, Ben Walsh’s Orkestra of the Underground and SNAP. Sandy recently led her own group at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, toured Europe with Mara!, was a featured soloist in Lloyd Swanton’s widely acclaimed Ambon project, and performed with Alon Ilsar.

Sandy has an extensive composition portfolio and has received many commissions from leading jazz, improvising and new music ensembles. Recent commissions include a suite in honour of legendary Australian saxophonist the late Bernie McGann, and a suite Rockpool Mirror based on photographs by Tall Poppies’ Belinda Webster. Wesleyan University Press released Sandy’s composition Testimony, a major work about the life and music of Charlie Parker with poetry by the Pulitzer Prize winning American poet Yusef Komunyakaa, in the US in 2013. Sandy composed Kali and The Time of Change, the title track of The Sirens debut CD.

Sandy has a keen interest in Indian classical music. She collaborates regularly with Sydney-based Indian musicians Sarangan Sriranganathan and Bobby Singh and recently released the CD Kapture, a tribute to South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada. ‘…a masterfully performed fusion of jazz and Indian classical musics… the improvisations exemplify the virtuosic energy that is a key resonance between jazz and Indian classical music.’ Cummins 1/6/15 www.musictrust.com.au

Her CD Cosmic Waves, featuring South Indian mridangam virtuoso Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani and Sruthi Laya, is released in India on Underscore Records. She began collaborating with Aneesh Pradhan and Shubha Mudgal during a Churchill Fellowship visit to India in 2014 and is currently co-composing ‘Bridge of Dreams’ with them for Sirens Big Band.

She has played with and written for Great White Noise, The Bruce Cale Orchestra, the KMA Orchestra, Kristen Cornwell Quintet, the Bernie McGann Trio, Judy Bailey, the Gai Bryant Quartet and Jeremy Sawkins. Her group Women and Children First was a ground-breaking ensemble during the 1980s, undertaking an epic seven month tour by bus around the whole of Australia. While living in Scotland in 1987, she played with the saxophone quartet SAXTC and the rhythm and blues band Tam White and The Dexters.

She has toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia. Some highlights have been the Chicago Jazz festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival, WOMAD, the Brecon Festival, the Outside In festival, the Edinburgh Festival, Montreal and Vancouver Jazz festivals, the Knitting Factory (NY) the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, the Manly Jazz Festival, Sydney and Melbourne Jazz Festivals, the Brisbane Biennial, the Adelaide Festival, Jazz Yatra (India), the Sidmouth Folk Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She has toured Russia, China, Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, India, Fiji, Western Samoa, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Hong Kong. She has been featured in several television programs for the ABC and Scottish television as well as radio broadcasts on the ABC, BBC and WDR (Germany). She appears in the Australian jazz documentaries 'Beyond el Rocco' and 'Dr Jazz'.

2016

Book chapter: ‘Expressive Identity in the Voices of Three Australian Saxophonists: McGann, Sanders and Gorman’ in: Antipodean Riffs, Essays on Australasian Jazz, Johnson, Bruce. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2016.

2015

Journal article: Expressive Identity in the Voices of Three Australian Saxophonists: McGann, Sanders and Gorman, Jazz Research Journal www.equinoxpub.com/Jazz

2013

Book chapter in Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker: with new and selected jazz poems, Komunyakaa, Yusef. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press; 2013.

Presented a paper Is it Jazz, or is it Indian and Wrong? at the Ownership and Creative Practice in World Music Colloquium, Macquarie University

Co-presented a paper Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker with Yusef Komunyakaa at Wesleyan University Music Colloquium, US

Presented a paper Meetings At The Table of Time: An Australian Saxophonist and Carnatic Improvisers in Dialogue at Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium, University of Guelph, Canada

Presented a paper Identity and the Performance of Carnatic Jazz Intercultural Music at Macquarie University, MMCCS

2011

Panel discussion at the Macquarie University India Research Centre symposium on the performing arts in India

2010

Presented a paper Carnatic Jazz Intercultural Music at HDR conference at Macquarie University, MMCCS

2008

‘Celebrating Humanity Through The Creative Process’, Peggy Glanville Hicks Address written and presented by Sandy Evans for The New Music Network; broadcast on ABC Fora TV; published on the New Music Network website

‘In Conversation with Michael Webb’, in Extempore Journal

Featured in a book chapter authored by Louise Denson about Jane Bunnett and Sandy Evans, ‘One World, Worlds Apart’, in Post-colonial Distances: The Study of Popular Music in Canada and Australia. B. Dimond, D. Crowdy & D. Downes (Eds.) Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. 2008

2004

‘The 21st Century Performer’, Sandy Evans, Daryl Pratt & Margery Smith interviewed by James Nightingale. Published in Sounds Australian

1995

Interview with Geoff Page for the National Library of Australia, Oral History and Folklore collection

The following books have references to Sandy Evans’ work:

Shand, John. Jazz: The Australian Accent. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. 2009.

Clare, John. Bodgie Dada and the Cult of Cool: Jazz in Australia since the 1940s. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. 1995.

Sharpe, John. I Wanted to Be a Jazz Musician. Canberra: National Film and Sound Archive. 2008.

Johnson, Bruce. The Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1987

* indicates a commissioned work

For the Australian Art Orchestra

Instrumentation: 5 Saxophones (doubling woodwinds), 3 Trumpets, Trombone, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Violin, Bass, Drums, 2 Percussion, Piano, Keyboards, Guitar

Feast and Lament For the Warrior Queen *

Testimony: The Legend of Charlie Parker * Collaboration with Yusef Komunyakaa featuring 11 Vocalists, Narrator and Big Band (as above)

Overture

Boxcars

Purple Dress

Deep South

A Day like Today

Abel and Cain

Black Cockatoo

Camarillo Part 1

Camarillo Part 2

Addie’s Boy

Pree’s Funeral Song

Barrow Street

A Soft Touch For Strings

Baroness Pannonica

Finale and Coda

The Beatitudes* Extended work (70 minutes) with libretto by Nigel Jamieson

Instrumentation: Children’s Choir, 8 vocal soloists and large ensemble – String Orchestra, Flute and Piccolo, Bb Clarinet/Bb Bass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone/Tenor Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Bb Trumpet, Tenor Trombone, Tuba/Euphonium, Didjeridu in D and Eb, Harp, Piano, Keyboard, Organ, Computer, Electric and Acoustic Guitar, Oud, Acoustic and Electric Bass, 5 Percussionists

For Ten Part Invention

Instrumentation: 4 Saxophones, 2 Trumpets, Trombone, Piano, Bass, Drums

Unidentified Spaces *

Mvt 1: Fortea Two

Mvt 2: The Heart

Mvt 3: North Pole

Mvt 4: Queensland

Tall Stories *

Long Shadows*

Wind Over The Lake*

Modern Companion*

Bittersweet and Cry*

The Invisible Man*

Program For Ten*

For The Sandy Evans Trio

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Bass, Drums

Not in the Mood

Pole Position

Hungry Head Shuffle

Reflections on Saraswati

Gentle Love

Mountview

Saha

Skedaddleology

Tom The Leprechaun and His Idiotical Frequencies

Triumphal Arch

Sunlight On Tears

Last Dance

One For Harry

Elvinesque

Jabiru

Och Aye The Groove

Neither This Nor That

Beehive Heaven

The Secret Garden

Circumbendibus Rapt (Co-composed with Brett Hirst)

Snake Gully

Venus and The Dog Star

Come On Mama

Like Wine

Morning Prayer

Kaleyard Blues

For Bernie McGann Quartet

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones, Bass, Drums

Eulogy For a Friend

Snap

Which Way Up

One For the Road

For Celebrating Bernie McGann Quintet

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones, Trumpet, Bass, Drums

Interstellar Conversations*

Tales of the Incredible Antarctic Sax Explorer and his Conniving Manager*

For Addie*

Addison Road Jive*

For the Sandy Evans Sextet

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Trumpet, Trombone, Piano, Bass, Drums

When The Sky Cries Rainbows*

Spectre*

Chromatic Dispersion*

Heedrum-Hodrum Headbanging*

Violet*

Alexander’s Dark Band*

Spectre of the Broken*

Indra Slays the Demon Serpent*

Broken*

Indigo Hues*

40 Degrees*

Hand in Hand*

With the Sun Behind Me*

Siva’s Wide Sky (co-composed with Guru Karaaikkudi Mani)

For Clarion Fracture Zone

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones (one doubling clarinet), Piano and sampler, Bass, Drums

Blue Shift

Feather Star

The Wild Uproar

Lest We Forget

Marine Graves

Nudibranch

Boogie At The Red Sofas Bar

Lilac Embers

Your Touch on My Skin

Jacaranda

What This Love Can Do (60 minute suite in 5 movements)

For Clarion Fracture Zone with the Martenitsa Choir

(Female Bulgarian choir)

Kogoto Obitcha Dushata Mi Part 1 and 2

Stirring the Waters (co-composed with Alister Spence)

For Saxophone Quartet

Five Portraits of Bellingen *

Dawn Over Gumbangyir Country

Urungutang

The Beautiful Bellinger

Boggy Creek Bop

Street Party

The Rose of Sharon

For GEST8

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones (one doubling Clarinet), Trumpet, Koto, Computer, Guitar, Bass, Drums

Winter Flight*

The March of Captain Vanstone*

A Shower of Sunbeams*

Inner Space*

School’s Out*

Autobus

For The catholics

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Trombone/Pocket Trumpet, Guitar, Bass, Drums, Percussion, Slide Guitar or Piano Accordion

DPM *

Margarita Thing

Floating On An Emerald Green Sea

And She Walked into the Field Where the Man Slept Wearing First Orange and Then Blue*

Clouds Form Shapes of Eagles’ Wings*

Afternoon Haze*

Easy Walk

For Waratah

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Koto/Bass Koto, Percussion

The Bali Boys

Prayer for East Timor

A Bend In The River

Dancing On Rainbows (Co-composed with Satsuki Odamura and Tony Lewis)

Time Never Sleeps (Co-composed with Satsuki Odamura and Tony Lewis)

For Bulgarian Women’s Choir

Peperuda*

For Bulgarian Women’s Choir and MARA!

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones, Voice/Tapan, Bouzouki, Bass

El Selzata Na Klouna*

Evkeliptov San*

Povik Ot Iuk Daletchen

Compositions for Indian jazz intercultural ensembles

Instrumentation: 2 Saxophones, Trumpet, Bass Trombone, Piano, Bass, Drums, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

Sacred Cow’s Tail

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Trumpet, Bass Trombone, Drums, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

Meetings at the Table of Time: *

Anbe Sivam (Co-composed with Guru Karaaikkudi Mani)

An Indian in Paris

Drums Across the Ganges

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Piano, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

Big Swell

Big Swell Reprise

Eagle Landing at Cape Leveque

Clouds At Dawn

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

Cosmic Waves At West Beach

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Sousaphone, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

The Agile Wallaby

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Electric Bass, Bamboo Flute, Electric Mandolin, Mridangam, Ghatam

Floating On An Emerald Green Sea

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Bass, Tabla, Sitar/Carnatic Male Voice, Drums

Robben Island*

The Censors*

A Free Mind*

Lokasvatanatrataa*

Freedom, Priceless Above Rubies*

Passive Resistance, No Regrets*

No Children Here*

Explosion of Memory*

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Bass, Sitar/Carnatic Male Voice

Seven Stories of Dreams Extended Work (60 minutes)

One Dream

One Planet

One Justice

One Prayer

One Breath

One Hope

Peace

For Rockpool Mirror (collaboration with photographer Belinda Webster)

Instrumentation: Saxophone duets with Koto, Tabla, Bass, Bass Trombone, Drums, AirSticks

Morning Mist

Rock Warrior 1

Rock Warrior 2

Gum Tree

Blue Gorge

Curved Tree

Rock Water Temple

Tree Tangle

Lake Yarrunga

Lake Yarrunga Colours

Rock Face

Cliff Edge

Dasavatara

For Sirens Big Band

Instrumentation: 5 Saxophones (doubling woodwinds), 4 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Bass Trombone, Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Rapper

Kali and The Time of Change (Rap by Harri Harding) *

Text-sound collaboration

Black Desert (Co-composed with Hazel Smith) *

For The String Contingent

Instrumentation: Saxophone, Violin, Guitar, Double Bass

Sahayog (Co-composed with Holly Downes)

For Soprano Saxophone, Trombone and Contrabass Clarinet

Transcendent Arc

For Alto and Baritone voices, Tenor Saxophone, Bass, Piano, Drums

Blood Red Moon (Text by Ngareta Rossell)

For The Seymour Group

Instrumentation: Flute/Alto Flute/Piccolo, Clarinet/Soprano Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone, Horn, 3 Trumpets, 2 Trombones, Bass Trombone, Didjeridu, Violin, Double Bass, Prepared Piano, Drum Kit

Unit 2, Cloud 9*

For Dance

Yellow Dog* (Co-composed with Peter Kennard)

Kapture* (Co-composed with Bobby Singh)

For Theatre

In Our Name* (Co-composed with Sumawi Hussain)

Film Soundtrack

Hatred*

Music for advertising

Clients include:

Oz Lotto

Commonwealth Bank

CDs featuring Sandy Evans’ compositions and/or improvisations

Sandy Evans Trio with Bobby Singh and Sarangan Sriranganathan

Kapture (Rufus Records) 2015

Sandy Evans and Yusef Komunyakaa

Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker (Wesleyan University Press) 2013

Sandy Evans Sextet

When the Sky Cries Rainbows (SET) 2011

Sandy Evans Trio

The Edge of Pleasure (SET) 2009

Not in the Mood (Newmarket) 2002

With Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani and Sruthi Laya

Cosmic Waves (Underscore Records) 2012

GEST8

Kaleidoscope (Tall Poppies) 2008

SNAP

Boggy Creek Bop (Rufus) 2010

Clarion Fracture Zone

Canticle (Rufus) 2002 (with the Martenitsa Choir)

Less Stable Elements (Rufus) 1996

What This Love Can Do (Rufus) 1994

Zones on Parade (Rufus) 1993

Blue Shift (Rufus) 1990-1991

Ten Part Invention

Live at Wangaratta (ABC) 2005

Unidentified Spaces (Rufus) 2000

Tall Stories (Rufus) 1994

The catholics

Yonder (Bugle) 2013

Inter Vivos - Live in Concert (Bugle) 2009

Village (Bugle) 2007

Gondola (Bugle) 2006

Choice (Bugle) 2000

Barefoot (Bugle) 1999

Life On Earth (Rufus) 1997

Simple (Rufus) 1994

The catholics (Rufus) 1992

MARA!

Tra Parole E Silenzio (Mara Music) 2012 (with the Martenitsa Choir)

Sezoni (Real World) 1997 (with the Martenitsa Choir)

Ruino Vino (Rufus) 1995

Don’t Even Think (Sandstock) 1990

The Australian Art Orchestra

Kindness/Udarta (Compilation, The Australia India Council) 2012

The Chennai Sessions (AAO) 2008

Ruby (AAO) 2005

The Theft of Sita (Newmarket) 2000

Into The Fire (AAO) 1999

Passion (ABC) 1999

The String Contingent

Facets (TSC) 2015

The Bernie McGann Trio

Playground (Rufus) 1997

The Gai Bryant Quartet

Music (GB) 2002

High Jinx (Rufus) 1998

Women and Children First

Missin’ (self released cassette) 1985

Women and Children First (Shock Records) 1984

Great White Noise

Sedition JJJ 1983

Atma Blu

Atma Blu (Chris Fields) 2016

austraLYSIS

History Goes Everywhere (Tall Poppies) 2015

Lysis Lives (Tall Poppies) 2002

Present Tense (Tall Poppies) 1997

The Next Room (Tall Poppies) 1994

Moving the Landscapes (Tall Poppies) 1992

Hazel Smith with austraLYSIS

Poet Without Language (Rufus Records) 1994

Lloyd Swanton

Ambon (Bugle Records) 2015

Andrew Robson

Songbook (Lamplight) 2013

Bearing The Bell (ABC) 2008

Kim Sanders and Friends

Bent Grooves (MMKS) 2007

Kristen Cornwell Quintet

Sea Journey (2000)

Spiral (2004)

Mohsen Soltany Sand

Australian Dream 2002

Paul McNamara

Duo Logic (Rufus) 1999

Jeremy Sawkins

Toys (Rufus Records) 1994

Judy Bailey and Friends

Sundial (ABC) 1993

Jamie Fielding

Notes From The Underground (Australian Independent Jazz Artists) 1983

Sirens Big Band

Kali and The Time of Change 2012

Compass Quartet