Elysian Fields

Upcoming gigs

About the band

Impossible to pigeonhole into a single genre, Elysian Fields has appeared at classical and jazz festivals, broadcast on Australian Digital Concert Hall, and been favourably reviewed in jazz, folk and classical music publications. The band has released two albums on the MOVE Records label, ‘What Should I say’ and ‘FIKA.’ A third album, ‘Swirling Flame’ is due to come out in the second half of 2024.

Elysian Fields was formed by Jenny Eriksson, Matt Keegan, and Matt McMahon in 2015. The band is an experiment in creating new improvised and composed repertoire for the electric viola da gamba – of which Eriksson is believed to be the only Australian exponent. 

Jenny Eriksson is widely recognised as one of this country’s leading acoustic viola da gambists – a 7 string, bowed instrument about the size of a cello but with frets.  She has performed and toured across Australia and around the globe.  She is a respected expert on the music of the French baroque and the works of the great French viola da gambist, Marin Marais, whose life was celebrated in the cult film, “Tour les matins du monde”. Alongside, and as a part of, her classical music appearances, Jenny has performed and recorded with jazz and world music artists for many years.  Prior to Elysian Fields, her collaborators included Llew and Mara Kiek and Steve Elphick from the Mara! band, horn player and composer, Paul Cutlan, Matt McMahon, Joseph Tawadros, Kevin Hunt, and Matt Keegan. In 2023 she made a guest appearance in Norway at the invitation of renowned Norwegian jazz pianist, composer and Steinway artist, Jan Gunnar Hoff, whose music Elysian Fields has championed.

The backbone of Elysian Fields’ set list consists of original works written for the line-up by Matt McMahon, Matt Keegan and Jenny Eriksson, along with arrangements and originals by Susie Bishop, bassist Jacques Emery, and drummer, Dave Goodman.  The band’s covers range widely from Eriksson’s arrangements of several songs by Marin Marais to charts and folk song arrangements by Susie Bishop and Jenny Eriksson reflecting Jenny’s Scandinavian heritage, to the likes of Swedish jazz/fusion guitarist, Mats Norrefalk, e.s.t. and Norwegian pianist/composer, Jan Gunnar Hoff. More recent commissions include works by Australian composers Gordon Kerry and Alice Chance, as well as Iceland’s Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir.

Elysian Fields’ influences are as broad as its member’s eclectic interests and include e.s.t., Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Tord Gustavson, Victor Wooten, Mats Norrefalk, Jean-Luc Ponty, Weather Report, Mara!, Swedish folk song, Jordi Savall, Marin Marais, John McLauglin, Pat Metheny, Jan Gunnar Hoff and Joni Mitchell.

Media

  • “Combining Eriksson’s electrified version of an instrument whose heyday was the 17th century, and Bishop’s violin and operatic singing on the one hand, and McMahon, Matt Keegan’s saxophones, Jacques Emery’s double bass and Dave Goodman’s drums on the other, the band can conjure a deep and mysterious sense of the centuries conversing – of courtly elegance sharing a convivial exchange with the liberalities of contemporary jazz-inflected improvising.” (John Shand, SMH, July 2021)
  • “…The alluring melodies and wonderfully nuanced playing on this album (FIKA) make it a highly successful jazz-classical hybrid with wide appeal.” (Jessica Nicholas, Spring, 2021, Dingo Australian Jazz Journal)
  • “It’s the quality of the music – a compelling mixture of Scandinavian folk, classical and jazz influences – that really compels… It’s a wonder and a pleasure to watch a band able to conjure such a dark, introspective feeling in the room.” (Jacob Stone, Limelight Magazine, November 2020)
  • “The source material is often exquisite, and the arrangements deft.” (John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, October 2020)
  • “The music speaks of passion and the human condition. It is a triumphant merger of the baroque period viola da gamba, a sublime soprano voice and other instruments often associated with jazz.” (Robert Vale, Fine Music Magazine, July 2020)
  • “What Should I Say offers so much to the listener, conjuring a range of emotions and summoning long forgotten memories. These are musicians at the top of their game blurring musical boundaries, bringing the past into the present and taking it back again. This album is a perfect melding of baroque and jazz with many other musical elements and traditions brought into play.” (Loretta Bernard, AustralianJazzNet, March 2019)
  • “Masterful musicians at play in the creation of new works and soundscapes that feature and incorporate Jennifer Eriksson’s electric viola da gamba.” (Stuart Vandegraaff, Loudmouth Magazine, 2019)
  • “Here was a head-spinning dialogue between half a millennium ago and now, and a sound as foreign as dreaming someone else’s dreams. It emanated from Jenny Eriksson’s electric viola da gamba, the only example in Australia.” (John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald May 2017)

Brett Hirst & Jenny Eriksson