About the Jazzgroove Committee
The Jazzgroove committee is primarily comprised of local practicing musicians who are all involved in the composition and performance of jazz-related music.
The committee is made up of Jazzgroove members, and these people are involved in the decision-making and planning for the Association. The committee meets approximately every six weeks, and assists with the application for and administering of government grants from The Australia Council and Arts NSW. The committee are nominated and voted in by the membership each year at the Annual General Meeting.
The Annual General Meeting takes place within 6 months of the annual audit. Members of Jazzgroove are strongly encouraged to attend the meeting, and AGM papers are sent by post 21 days before the meeting as required by the Department of Fair Trading.
Details of the AGM are available on request. You must be a Jazzgroove Member in order to nominate and vote for positions on the committee.
2010-11 Jazzgroove committee members:
John Hibbard: President
Matt McMahon: Vice President
James Loughnan: Co-Artistic Director
Dave De Vries: Co-Artistic Director
Andrew Woods: Treasurer
Caroline Davis: Secretary
Matt Ottignon: Ordinary Committee member
Simon Ferenci: Ordinary Committee member
Alison Flett: Ordinary Committee member
Staff:
Anna Riddel, General Manager
A graduate of a Bachelor of Music (Distinction) and a Bachelor of Education (Distinction) from the University of New South Wales, Anna has also studied marketing, politics, and business law. She has worked for music management company Scorpio Music and the new music business Posse. Anna is a singer who trained classically in the Southern Highlands where she grew up, before retraining in musical theatre and contemporary singing with Pat Wilson throughout university. Anna spent two years as Secretary on the Jazzgroove committee before taking up the position of Administrator.
Caroline Davis, Secretary
Caroline Davis, arts administrator, jazz vocalist and classical flautist, attended the Conservatorium High School, Northeastern University in Boston, and the University of Sydney, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Ancient History/Performance Studies), and a Bachelor of Music (Performance). She then attended Deakin University, where she studied Arts and Entertainment Management. After working various roles in stage management, publicity, groups and tourism, and music education, she currently works in Finance and Government Relations at Opera Australia.
Sonia Tsai, Book-keeper
Sonia Tsai was employed as the Administrator of Jazzgroove Association from 2004 to 2005, and has worked with jazz band Judy Campbell's Mosaicc assisting with booking, marketing and publicity for the 2007 and 2008 tours. She has also worked in event coordination roles within the performing arts and events management sectors since 2000.
Simon Barker- Jazzgroove Records Manager
Drummer Simon Barker studied in Australia with John Collins, and in New York with John Riley, Keith Copeland, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Kim Plainfield and Mike Clarke. Since returning home in 1990 he has performed throughout Australia, Europe, Asia, Russia, and the US. He is involved in several collaborative projects including Band of Five Names, Showa 44 and Red Fish Blue. In 2005, Simon created Kimnara Records, an independent label presenting new music by Australian improvisers. He joined the Jazzgroove team in 2008.
Chris Ruhle- Publicist
Chris Ruhle has been involved in the music scene for the past thirty years as a promoter, publicist, festival organizer and club booker. He has also written extensively for magazines such as On The Street, Drum and Fine Music as well as presenting weekly radio programmes on 2MBS-FM and FBi.
Committee Bios:
Alison Flett
hails from regional South Australia where she grew up performing with and for community choirs, local eisteddfods and events. She has studied at the Adelaide Elder School of Music and at the Australian National University under the tuition of jazz greats such as Vince Jones and Kristin Berardi. In 2008 she was a vocal finalist in James Morrison’s Generations in Jazz Vocal Scholarship and since moving to Sydney has performed for the Rugby World Cup and with the likes of Mahalia Barnes, David Campbell and Darren Percival. Ever the energetic kid, as a new member she is excited to get her jazzgroove on and support live music!
David de Vries
was born in 1982 and took up the guitar at the age of fourteen. He enrolled at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2004 and was awarded the Patricia Bell grant for achieving the highest audition mark. David graduated in 2008 with first class honours completing his final thesis on the compositional development of early avant-guarde jazz pioneer Jimmy Giuffre. He has performed with James Morrison, The Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Craig Scott, Judy Bailey, Jonathon Zwartz and Virna Sanzone. David was a finalist in the prestigious Wangaratta jazz competition in 2007.
Matt McMahon
and a founding Committee member (1998). Matt is a professional musician (piano and keyboards) and composer. Matt has recently won the 2005 Freedman Fellowship award. He is musical director for Vince Jones, leads his own groups and is co-leader of Band of Five Names. He has played with/plays with the likes of: Bobby Previte, Phil Slater, Baecastuff, Sandy Evans, Dale Barlow, Guy Strazzullo, Steve Hunter and Dave Panichi. He won the National Jazz Award at the 1999 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and is also a radio presenter and Board Member of Eastside Radio (89.7 FM), Sydney.
Matt Ottignon
Matt is a saxophonist who has been described as having a classic tenor sound as wide as a double-frontage terrace. He has appeared on the recordings of Katie Noonan, Jackie Orszazcky, and Blue King Brown and has appeared on stage with international legends Lou Reed and Brian Wilson. Ever since moving to Sydney from his hometown of Auckland NZ, Matthew has been in demand for his ability to add something special to bands, dj’s and recording artists from all over the world, in particular having spent some time with jazz master Mike Nock. His skills as a multi instrumentalist have cemented him a position in triple aria winning band Monsieur Camembert. His own jazz trio project ‘Informal Troupe’ released their debut album in 2007 to critical acclaim.
John Hibbard
John Hibbard, trombonist and composer, studied jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, in 2001 representing the institution at the International Association of Jazz Schools conference in Boston USA. Since graduating in 2002, John has worked in a wide range of musical genres, including King Curly, Michael Lira's Darth Vegas, the Tango Saloon, Zoe and the Buttercups and Jess Green Septet. While studying he collaborated with fellow students to form Sidecar, and released the album Dreams of the Middle Class in early 2005, featuring many of John's compositions. He performs regularly with the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, and has contributed four bombastic compositions so far. John's arrangement of Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven was featured on the 2006 recording The Mothership Plays the Music of Mike Nock. He has also written for and performed in Invisible City, a composers collective of many horns and reckless abandon. In 2006 John joined Wollongong's Circus Monoxide, touring regional NSW. He has appeared at the Woodford Folk Festival, twice with Darth Vegas, in 2005 accompanying the acrobats of Top Chick Management, and in 2006 with King Curly. In 2008, John was delighted to bring the music of the Sousaphonics to audiences large and small on behalf of Musica Viva in Schools.
Andrew Woods
Andrew has been Treasurer since mid 2003, has been involved with Jazzgroove for the past six years, initially as bookkeeper. In 2002, he graduated from Sydney’s UTS with a Business Degree (Finance, Marketing) and has founded and operated several businesses since 1998 in the capacities of Book Keeper, Management Accountant and Financial Controller. Andrew currently works as the Accountant for a city law firm, two Mortgage Broking organisations, a roof construction company and various not-for-profit organisations.
James Loughlan
James is a saxophonist working within the Sydney music scene. A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium Bachelor of Jazz Studies, James writes for and plays with the Girth quartet, has collaborated with many of Sydney's finest musicians, and has played at music festivals clubs around Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany. James also regulars records and performs with various pop, soul, rock and hip hop acts including Andy Bull, Kid Confucious, Gelbison, and the Ray Mann Three. James is a new addition to the Jazzgroove Committee, and is extremely honoured and excited to be involved in such a worthwhile and influential Organisation.
[some] Former Jazzgroove committee members:
Carl Dewhurst
Carl Dewhurst was elected on 15 May, 2008 as the new Jazzgroove President, however Carl is no stranger to Jazzgroove, having been a founding committee member (1998). He is Leader of the Carl Dewhurst Trio and co-leader of Showa 44 – with drummer Simon Barker. He has released four recordings of his own work. Since 2000 Carl has been a member of the Australian Art Orchestra led by Paul Grabowsky. He also currently performs with: Scott Tinkler, Band of Five Names, 20th Century Dog, Michelle Nicolle, Paul Capsis and The Catholics. Carl has played with international touring artists Terumasa Hino, Bobby Previte, Mose Allison, Bobby Shew, Andy Bey, and in 2006 with Jim Black. Carl was the winner of both the judges and peoples choice awards at the Ike Issacs International Jazz Guitar competition in 1998 and was runner-up at the National Jazz Awards in 2000. He has been a guest lecturer at several Australian and European universities and was on the judging panel for the 2006 Music Council of Australia Freedman Fellowship.
Cameron Undy
Cameron is a founding committee member of Jazzgroove (1988). His bands include 20th Century Dog and Kidzen, and he has played with Mike Nock, Bernie McGann, Roger Frampton, Dale Barlow, Paul Grabowsky and many others. Internationally he has performed with artists such as Sam Rivers, Don Pullen, Vincent Herring, Eddie Marshall and Terumasa Hino. Undy was an integral part of the early success of acid jazz group D.I.G. Groove, funk and dance music have played a big part in his career. In the last 5 years he has toured the world several times and recorded with European “Nu Jazz” producers Mark de Clive-Lowe, Nathan Haines, Kaid Thatham, Bugz in the Attik and the list goes on.
Matt Keegan
Matt has lent his musicality and saxophone style to many different bands all over the world. Currently based in Sydney, Keegan has also performed extensively throughout the USA, Europe and Asia. He is a finalist in this year’s Freedman award to be held in June 2007. Keegan is the leader of his own band the Matt Keegan trio and also works regularly with a variety of groups including the Resurrectors, 20th Century Dog, Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra and the Japan Australia Jazz Orchestra. Keegan has also performed with various band’s and bandleaders including James Muller, Jackie Orszaczky, Declan Kelly, Maroon 5 and Marc Brousard.
Tim Stocker
Tim Stocker is happiest when he plays the Saxophone. He is equally at home on Tenor and Baritone Saxophone and is establishing himself as a unique voice on these instruments. He likes to keep himself busy writing music for his original projects Fechner's Law (7 piece), The Adorables (Trio) and more recently the Tim Stocker Quintet. Having moved to Sydney in 2001 from Albury in Country NSW, Tim has been in demand as a sideman in many groups including The Mothership Orchestra, The Subterraneans, The Doig Collective, The Crusty Suitcase Band, The Bogalusa Strutters, Invisible City, etc. He has been featured with a number of popular bands including Architecture in Helsinki, The Beautiful Girls, Solaa (NZ), The Hipstones and Rastawookie and others that he is not so proud of. Tim will bring an interesting mixture of experiences to the Jazzgroove Association. He has helped build a specialist musical instrument shop into the best store of its kind in Australia and hopes that some of these tools can be used in his involvement as a Jazzgroove committee member.
Jamie Cameron
Jamie is a Sydney drummer who has played with Sean Wayland, Elana Stone, Steve McKenna, and Greta Gertler. Current projects include 20th Century Dog, Dave Reaston's 10 Guitar Project, Lily Dior, Tim Stocker Quartet, The Reaston-Kay Effect, and songwriters Luke Escombe and Joe Kelly. He is an ordinary committee member and has recently taken on the role of webmaster for Jazzgroove.
Lucian McGuiness
Lucian is the former Record Label Manager having handed over the reigns to Zarina Varley and Greg Levine in July 2008, he remained on the committee till 2009. Lucian is a trombonist and composer, who first visited Jazzgroove at the hallowed Landsdowne in 1999 despite his Canberran origins. Lucian plays with the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra and is also on the committee for that organisation, co-leads the Keijzer/McGuiness Quintet, the Techno Prisoners and My Goodness McGuiness, and rock legends The Real Birdbrain. Lucian freelances as a trombonist for Jazz, Reggae and Hip Hop bands locally and overseas.
Kerri Glasscock
Kerri was the Jazzgroove Administrator from July 2008 to February 2010. She has a broad understanding of the Sydney jazz scene having managed the jazz venue The Sound Lounge from its inception in 2004 till 2007, and from her time as Director of the artist run performance space 505 which she co-founded in 2004 and continues to manage. She has previously worked as an administrator at the Seymour Centre (2005-2007) and for the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association (2004-2007).
Alex Masso
is a 23 year old drummer/live music enthusiast currently studying jazz performance at Sydney Conservatorium, under several of this country's finest musicians. Co-leads Trio Apoplectic, which in February 2006 toured regional NSW and looks set for more adventures. Other current musical priorities include the Splinter Orchestra, Jeremy Rose Quartet, Sudanese singer/violinist Asim Gorashi, and other emerging projects in jazz & free improvising groups. For fun, Alex studies tabla with Bobby Singh.
Jess Green
Former Label Manager for Jazzgroove Records, Jess is a guitarist, composer & vocalist and was born and raised in Canberra where she completed BA Mus (Hons1) in Jazz Studies at the Canberra School of Music. She released her debut album “The Singing Fish, and other Short Stories” through Jazzgroove Records in December 2005, and plays in various groups around Sydney including: The Green Septet, Attaclapse, Katook, and The New Dynamites. Jess teaches guitar at SCEGGS and Riverside Girls High and has taught ensembles at SIMA’s “Young Women’s Jazz Workshop” and was the winner of the Jann Rutherford Memorial in 2006.
Judy Campbell
former secretary from 2002-2008 - is a vocalist, composer, arranger, producer and choral director, and leads the contemporary world jazz ensemble Mosaic. Their debut album Common Ground was released in June 2004, in the lead up to an overseas tour supported by the NSW Ministry for the Arts. They toured in Australia in 2005, supported again by the Ministry for the Arts, and released a new CD in 2006, accompanied by a National tour. Judy has performed with Australian jazz legends such as Mike Nock, Nick McBride and James Muller, and has collaborated with acclaimed composers Gordon Brisker, Mark Isaacs and Steve Hunter, as well as Melbourne poet Jacob Rosenberg. Judy conducts the North Shore Temple Emanuel Choir, who she has directed on 2 choral CDs. She studied arranging at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and later taught there.
Cameron Deyell
former Jazzgroove President & former Co-Artistic Director of the association (2002 - 2004). He is a guitarist and composer from Auckland, New Zealand. He studied his B.Mus (Hons) at the University of Adelaide and at UCLA. In Los Angeles he studied with jazz guitar legend Kenny Burrell. Deyell has recorded with Mike Nock and performed as a soloist at festivals in Melbourne, Wangaratta, New York’s Times Square and Shanghai, China. He is a practicing musician in Melbourne (sorely missed by the Sydney scene). Amongst others he plays guitar with the Freedivers, Bertie Blackman and produces hip-hop with Ends & Means.
Murray Jackson
President of Jazzgroove between 2002-2004, Vice-President September 2005. Grad.Dip.Mus (ANU); Ass.Dip.Arranging (Sydney), Murray initially worked as the Administrator of Jazzgroove (1999), a position he held for two years. He has had a wide range of professional experience from cruise ships to leading his own jazz projects. In 1998 he won the Jazz Action Society new composition award. He has studied Jazz Performance at the Australian National University, and composition and arranging at the NSW Conservatorium. He currently teaches a Jazz Performance class at the University of Technology.
Evan Mannell
former Co-Artistic Directory and Ordinary Committee member since 2004 - is a professional musician with B.Mus. in jazz performance under scholarship at Sydney's Conservatorium of Music. Evan was winner of the James Morrison Jazz Scholarship and toured nationally with the James Morrison Sextet for 3 years. This was followed by the release of his 2002 debut album "Fineline" working with Phil Slater, Cameron Undy and Carl Dewhurst. He has since played with Mike Nock, Dale Barlow, Mark Isaacs, Aaron Ottignon (Aronas), Judy Bailey, Tigramuna, the Freedivers, the Alcohotlicks (with Ben Hauptmann and Aaron Flower) and Bobby Gebert Trio to name a few. In 2004 he was a finalist (Drums) at the National Jazz Awards in Wangaratta.
Zoe Hauptmann
former Co-Artistic Director & Ordinary Committee member since 2002 - holds a bachelor degree [1st class honors] in jazz performance from the Australian National University. In 2001 Zoe was one of 10 bassists selected to compete in the National Jazz Awards at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.She has recently recorded the debut CD for her own group "Zoe & the Buttercups" and plays in many different bands including The Elana Stone Band, King Curly, Exposed Bone, Aria award winner Wanderlust and BAZ.
Gerard Masters
former Ordinary Committee Member and head of the Jazzgroove Record Label Sub-Committee - graduated in 2000 with a BMus, majoring in Jazz Music from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and a gained a Diploma in Jazz Studies in 1998 from the Christchurch Polytechnic, New Zealand. He has composed music for his group, The Gerard Masters Trio, on the albums Palindrome and Island Life. He was commissioned to write for the Mike Nock Big Small Band and currently performs with the Lily Dior Quartet, E.O.N, Ends and Means, Masters/Derrick Duo and The Good Guys.
Mark Harris
former Ordinary Committee Member - has a classical background in his study of the double bass. Mark toured Europe and Australia with the Australian Youth Orchestra while completing an Honours degree majoring in Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Mark spent two years living and working in Asia and Europe, playing concerts in Paris with the Chris Cody Coalition and the Steve Potts Quartet. Since returning to Australia in 2003, Mark has performed with Tigramuna, the Mark Isaacs Trio, The Emma Pask Quintet, the Sean Coffin Quintet, The Tango Saloon, Swing City Big Band and with the James Morrison Sextet. He plays with Monsieur Camembert (ARIA Award winners) and has performed with the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra. Mark leads his own quartet Mark4, releasing Entree for Jazzgroove Records, featuring James Muller, Matt McMahon and Evan Mannell.
Dale Gorfinkel
ormer Ordinary Committee Member - is a vibraphone player with the Farfinkel Pugowski Quartet, Mike Nock Project, and the Splinter Orchestra. He has performed at the Wangaratta International Festival of Jazz, the Nownow Festival of Spontaneous Music, the Melbourne Festival of Experimental Music and Mt Gambia Jazz Festival. In 2004, with the assistance of an Australia Council grant, he toured with Farfinkel Pugowski to Canberra, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and Melbourne. He completed a Bachelor of Music (Jazz Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2004.
Ross Ogden
former Ordinary Committee Member, past Administrator and Vice-President, member since 2004 - is a professional musician (vocals, woodwinds), born and bred in Sydney. He leads several groups including Gotham City Horns and co-broadcasts the modern jazz program "On The Corner" on 2SER 107.3FM. As administrator, Ross brings many years of industry experience and business acumen to the organisation.
Joanne Kee
Former General Manager of Jazzgroove. Her background includes not for profit and corporate as well as organizations ranging in size from small to large. She has worked in the arts sector for over 10 years in both the UK and Australia at the Sydney Opera House (Business Manager Programming), The Song Company (GM), Carnivale/Café Carnivale (Business Manager), Arts Council of England (touring officer), Ausdance NSW (Chair).
Sean Wayland
is one of Jazzgroove's founding members working with a core group of 8 musicians to setup the organisation eleven years ago. Sean is now based in New York and is working towards establishing a similar organisation over there.
If you have been a committee member of Jazzgroove and would like to be listed please let me know. -admin@jazzgroove.com- |
