Friday 8 December 2023
TORI FREESTONE/ALCYONA MICK QUARTET
Saxophonist/flautist Tori Freestone and pianist Alcyona Mick are currently creating a stir on the UK jazz scene. The premiere of Tori’s new composition ‘Birds of Paradise’ at the Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room (EFG London Jazz Festival) resulted in the Ivor's Award for Jazz Composition 2022 while Alcyona was recently shortlisted for a Parliamentary Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year Award.
Formed in 2015 with an invite to perform at the Manchester Jazz Festival, this characterful duo has a very spontaneous, interactive approach drawing from a vast range of musical influences inhabiting but also going boldly beyond the jazz genre, including English folk, Brazilian music, classical music, free improvisation, Monk and more.
"... the variety and expressive possibilities of this duo are certainly endless" - Concerto magazine, Austria
'Freestone has…an imposingly original sound' - John Fordham, Guardian
'Alcyona Mick is an unusual powerhouse of a talent' – MOJO
'elegant, engaging and original music, played with magnificent panache' - All About Jazz
Award winning multi-instrumentalist Tori Freestone features in many of the UK’s most exciting ensembles, co leads a duo with pianist Alcyona Mick and leads her own trio with numerous releases to her name. She received the Ivor Novello Award for Jazz ensemble composition in 2022 for ‘Birds of Paradise’ which features on the most recent Tori Freestone/Alcyona Mick duo release ‘Make One Little Room an Everywhere’ and her most recent trio release 'El Mar de Nubes' was voted 'Jazz album of the Month' in the Guardian 2019. She was shortlisted for the 2017 Arts Foundation Award for Jazz Composition and the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year 2017 plus awarded PRS funding and the Help Musician's Do it Differently Award and Transmission fund in 2020 to write and record music for her duo and for a large ensemble composition project.
As an educator she has performed workshops for the Welsh College of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire, Leeds Conservatoire, Kingston University, Falmouth University and Truro College, and has lectured at the Royal Academy of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Middlesex University and Trinity Laban. She is currently Professor in Jazz Performance and Jazz composition at Leeds Conservatoire and visiting lecturer at the Royal Welsh College of Music plus tutors for the National Youth Jazz Collective running workshops and tutoring on summer schools alongside the likes of Dave Holland, Norma Winstone, Nikki Iles, and some of the UK's finest musicians.
Tori is a Borgani (Italy) artist.
"Freestone has clearly listened widely, but her musicality and broad experiences have stirred all that input into an imposingly original sound" - John Fordham, The Guardian 4 * review
“a flute and reeds player of nicely sinuous melodic invention” – The Telegraph
“I really dig her; she’s so organic...She sounds very relaxed, but she’s got a real burn to her playing on the tenor saxophone...my ears never get tired" - Ingrid Jensen' 'Artist Choice' Article Jazz Times, USA
“Freestone has caused a stir far beyond the UK…” - Leibnitz Jazz Festival review, Austria
Line up:
Tori Freestone – saxophone
Alcyona Mick – piano
Dave Whitford – double bass
Jay Davis - drums
Saksofonistka/flecistka Tori Freestone i pianistka Alcyona Mick wywołują obecnie zamieszanie na brytyjskiej scenie jazzowej. Premiera nowej kompozycji Tori „Birds of Paradise” w Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room (EFG London Jazz Festival) zaowocowała nagrodą Ivor's Award for Jazz Composition 2022, a Alcyona znalazła się niedawno na liście do nagrody Parliamentary Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year!
„...różnorodność i możliwości wyrazu tego duetu są z pewnością nieograniczone” – magazyn Concerto, Austria
„muzyka elegancka, wciągająca i oryginalna, zagrana ze wspaniałym rozmachem” – All About Jazz
Muzycy:
Tori Freestone – saksofon
Alcyona Mick – fortepian
Dave Whitford – kontrabas
Jay Davis – perkusja
