BIJF Opening Party

Unladylike Big Band and MNM Present: BIJF Opening Party

• Saturday, October 21st at The Clubhouse (Moorooka)
• Doors at 3pm, Music from 3.30pm
• $40 entry (school group discount)

Unladylike Big Band and MADE NOW MUSIC are ecstatic to be launching the 2023 Brisbane International Jazz Festival.

With a massive lineup including TALKIN’ JAZZ WOMEN'S WORKSHOP BAND, HUDA THE GODDESS AND REUBEN LEWIS launching their debut EP, UNLADYLIKE BIG BAND and welcoming home KRISTIN BERADI to launch her latest solo album - this concert is going to be a one-time-only event not to be missed.

// KRISTIN BERARDI

Berardi is one of the first calls in the Australian Jazz Scene. She has worked with such international greats such as Kenny Werner, Jim Pugh, Ingrid Jensen, Christine Jensen, Pascal Schumacher, Dan Weiss, Thomas Morgan, Gary Versace and such Australian Jazz greats as Julien Wilson, Sam Anning, Barney McAll, James Muller, Jamie Oehlers, Ben Vanderwal, Tony Gould amoungst others. She won the Montreux Jazz Festival's International Shure Voice competition in 2006 and the following year supported Al Jarreau and George Benson at the Montreux Jazz Festival. She won the National Jazz Awards for Voice 2012 at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival and has three Bell Awards for the Best Jazz Vocal Album of the year. Also, in 2010 she was awarded the Freedman Fellowship for Jazz in Australia, and is the only vocalist to ever win this prestigious award. Since 2013, Berardi is a creative musician, composer and educator and is passionate about sharing music.  Kristin is from QLD Australia and is now residing in Switzerland where she is on staff at HSLU, in Luzern (2021).

// UNLADYLIKE BIG BAND

The 17-piece Unladylike Big Band will make its debut as a full band in October as part of the Brisbane International Jazz Festival alongside some massive international and interstate acts. Stay tuned for more details. They will perform a selection of compositions and arrangements by women throughout history and contemporary composers including Australia’s very own Gemma Farrell, Louise Denson, Judy Bailey and members of the band itself. This is a collaboration of some of Australia’s finest musicians such as Martha Baartz, Peta Leigh Wilson, Helen Russell, Kayleigh Pincott, Ange Santamaria, Grace Mary King, Sharon Nobs and Bec Scolnik, so you won’t want to miss this special show.

The Unladylike Big Band showcases, encourages and empowers women in the jazz community. While less than a quarter of all professional jazz musicians worldwide are female, Queensland’s only professional big band comprised entirely of women and led by women bridges this gender representation gap. The band exists as a platform for the historically ‘unladylike’ act of performing jazz music on instruments that may have stereotypically been thought of as masculine.

While there are many grievances surrounding the lack of women represented in jazz, we cannot ignore those who are already there. We instead choose to celebrate and recognize those women who have paved the way for the generations to come.

//HUDA THE GODDESS AND REUBEN LEWIS Award winning Naarm based musician Reuben Lewis and legendary Meanjin based spoken word poet Huda Fadlelmawla combine forces in the world premiere of their live duo. Known as 'Huda the Goddess' on stage, Huda Fadlelmawla delivers powerful spoken word poetry about equality, her journey as a Sudanese refugee and women’s rights. Through trumpet alongside live processing with pedals and laptop Reuben Lewis devises an ever expanding and “vivid listening experience that gleams with sinister detail” (The Wire). There is a vast, monolithic intensity to this collaboration. It plays on expectations, shattering all semblance of familiar form, story and symbol. We are instead evoked to create a new narrative, one that is just between us the listener, the poet and the sound world. This is a first-time creative exchange not to be missed!