ONJ | WOMEN OF JAZZ

The Orchestre national de jazz (ONJ) will present the concert Femmes de jazz under the direction of Orchestre conductor Christine Jensen. Women who take jazz deeply to heart will gather on stage at l'Astral for the performance.

Femmes de jazz will feature pianist and composer Marianne Trudel, who is often at the piano with the ONJ, demonstrating the poetic sense author and jazz lover Stanley Péan associates with her music. There will be a world premiere performance of a piece Marianne Trudel composed for the occasion Dans la forêt de ma mémoire. Singer Anne Schaefer, will be there with her haunting melodies. Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, sister of Christine Jensen and member of the Grammy award-winning orchestra of composer Maria Schneider, will also be at the celebration. In addition, Marianne Trudel has asked Robbie Kuster, jazz drummer and member of Patrick Watson's band, to take part in the performance of her work, commissioned by the ONJ with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

The program will feature a tribute to the orchestral music of women of jazz, including the enchanting and joyful Choro Dançado* by Maria Schneider, a work inspired by Brazilian music and the art of fugue in the African style. In addition to conducting, Christine Jensen will perform a piece entitled Swirlaround, full of harmonic inventions carried by a playful dynamism.

Also part of this rich evening of music will be Blueprint and Untitled, pieces by avant-garde Japanese composer and pianist Satoko Fujii, who studied jazz in the United States. To end the evening, the women of jazz will perform Fresh Impression, a salute to renowned American jazz composer Carla Bley.

Christine Jensen took home the Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year Juno award in 2014 for Habitat. Marianne Trudel's group, Trifolia, captured the 2014 Jazz Album of the year Opus prize for Le Refuge.

* First movement of the triptych Three Romances.