Help Fund Elysian Fields’ first CD

What is it all about?

Elysian Fields is Australia’s only electric viola da gamba ensemble.  I formed the band two years ago.  Our vision to create this country’s first CD of original music for electric viola da gamba and jazz ensemble.  This is an amazing opportunity to take one of the Western world’s oldest instruments into the 21^st century – and it is being done here!  We are seeking funding help from music lovers to make this happen.

What are we going to record?

I asked leading jazz artists, composers and band members Matt McMahon and Matt Keegan to write a major song cycle for the CD – making them the first and second Australian composers ever to write vocal music for the electric gamba.  The pieces they composed are amazing – partly written down and partly improvised.  Bassist Siebe Pogson has written several pieces and so have I.  Each of these works has been premiered and “played in” to live audiences.

What are critics saying about us?

In May 2017 leading jazz critic, John Shand, reviewed the premiere of Matt McMahon’s setting of poems by Thomas Wyatt in the Sydney Morning Herald and gave us 8.5/10:

“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….The songs were exquisitely sung by Susie Bishop (who also played violin). Clearly at ease with the language, she neither over-dramatised the pieces nor made them stilted, rather enhancing Wyatt’s tone of quiet melancholy and amused resignation.”

How can people help?

Supporters can make a fully tax-deductible donation through the Australian Cultural Fund (ACF). The ACF is a fundraising platform for Australian artists.  Managed by Creative Partnerships Australia, it was established by the Australian Government in 2003 to encourage donations to the arts.  Donate at: https://australianculturalfund.org.au/projects/the-viola-da-gamba-is-electrifying/

Who is Elysian Fields?

I formed the group in 2015 and it is co-led by renowned improvised music artists, Matt Keegan and Matt McMahon.  Other members included leading vocalist Susie Bishop, along with upcoming players, Siebe Pogson and Finn Ryan.  We are a blend of youth and experience!

§  Jenny Eriksson – electric viola da gamba and composer	§  Susie Bishop – vocals
§  Matt Keegan – saxophones and composer	§  Siebe Pogson – bass guitar and composer
§  Matt McMahon – piano and composer	§  Finn Ryan – drums

My statement as an artist

My life is music. In my early 20s, having studied the cello at Sydney Conservatorium, I found my lifelong passion, the viola da gamba or gamba for short. I then spent several years studying in Europe.  This beautiful instrument has now been at the core of my life for 35 years. During this time, I have performed across Australia and around the world. I also have a passion for jazz. Five years ago, I commissioned Australia’s only electric viola da gamba. Since then I have worked with some of Australia’s finest jazz musicians to create a whole new repertoire for this unique instrument – so like the acoustic viola da gamba and yet so different!

I believe that the development of the electric viola da gamba creates a new, vibrant future for my instrument by allowing more recent, (and louder) instruments like the piano, saxophones and percussion to blend with the unique texture and articulation of the 7-string viol. As John Shand wrote recently, we are literally creating a new sound world.

I also believe that new Australian creative works matter. Although much of my artistic life has been dedicated to the early music, I have always commissioned new Australian music for the acoustic viol.  We’ve now created some 2 hours of great new semi-improvised music for the electric gamba, the best of which we are ready to share with the world.

Our history – the formal bit

It’s not often that a totally new instrument enters the improvised music scene but in an exciting Australian first, band leaders Jenny Eriksson, Matt Keegan and Matt McMahon are proud to have launched Elysian Fields several years ago.

Eriksson is widely recognised as one of Australia’s leading acoustic viola da gambists – a 7 string, bowed instrument about the size of a cello but with frets – and one of her instruments great risk-takers.  She is an expert on the music 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 highly regarded classical chamber music performances, Jenny has performed and recorded with jazz and world music artists for many years.  Her collaborators include 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 as well as Susie Bishop and Emily Rose Sarkova from Chaika.  McMahon and Keegan are two of our nation’s leading jazz performer/composers with decades of experience between them.

Elysian Fields’ set list was built over several years while working in a number of combinations, initially without percussion.  The back bone of their gigs consists of original works composed for the group by Matt McMahon, Matt Keegan and Siebe Pogson along with Eriksson’s unique take on several songs by Marin Marais.   The music the band covers ranges from “A remark you made” by Joe Zawinul, to charts and folk songs reflecting Eriksson’s Scandinavian heritage from the likes of jazz/fusion guitarist, Mats Norrefalk, e.s.t. and Norwegian pianist/composer, Jan Gunnar Hoff along with arrangements of charts by local artists Guy Strazz and Steve Hunter. Elysian Field’s influences are as broad as its members and include Swedish jazz greats, e.s.t., Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Tord Gustavson, Victor Wooten, Mats Norrefalk, Jean-Luc Ponty, Weather Report, Mara!, Jordi Savall, Jon Cleary, Marin Marais, John McLauglin, Pat Metheny, Jan Gunnar Hoff and Joni Mitchell.

Contact

Jenny Eriksson – jennyeriksson212@gmail.com; 0412 459 155

Philip Pogson – philippogson@theleadingpartnership.com.au; 04112 459 156