CANCELLED - Jazz for Juniors
PLEASE NOTE: In response to COVID-19, WAYJO sadly announce cancellation of Jazz for Juniors in April.
Ticket holders for these shows; Perth Theatre Trust will process a full refund back to the credit card making the purchase, and be in touch with those who paid by cash or other methods.
You do not need to do anything.
Please allow up to 15 business days for the refund to be processed.
If you can, please consider a ticket refund or other donation to WAYJO at https://wayjo.com/support
Full statement: https://wayjo.com/covid-19-concert-cancellations
We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and hope to see you at another WAYJO performance in the near future.
Do your kids know jazz? We bet they do, whether it’s through watching Disney films or sipping a babyccino at your favourite café, and with over 6,000 parents and their carers experiencing Jazz for Juniors since we launched these concerts in 2017, they’ll love hearing their favourite songs up close.
With interactive songs, the chance to try out instruments designed for small hands, and plenty of time to get up and boogie, Jazz for Juniors is perfect school holiday entertainment for children aged 7 and under.
We can also come out to your school or day care centre. Smile, jump and jive with Jazz for Juniors!
WAYJO’s Education program is supported by Healthway promoting the Act-Belong-Commit message
WAYJO presents act-belong-commit Jazz for Juniors
WAYJO Ensembles, accompanied by YOU the audience!
Tue 14 & Wed 15 April, 9.30am & 11.00am - CANCELLED
Tue 7 & Wed 8 July, 9.30am & 11.00am
Tue 29 & Wed 30 September, 9.30am & 11.00am
Downstairs at The Maj | His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
Tickets from Perth Theatre Trust
CANCELLED - Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom
PLEASE NOTE: In response to COVID-19, WAYJO sadly announce cancellation of Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom.
Ticket holders for this show; Perth Theatre Trust will process a full refund back to the credit card making the purchase, and be in touch with those who paid by cash or other methods.
You do not need to do anything.
Please allow up to 15 business days for the refund to be processed.
If you can, please consider a ticket refund or other donation to WAYJO at https://wayjo.com/support
Full statement: https://wayjo.com/covid-19-concert-cancellations
We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and hope to see you at another WAYJO performance in the near future.
One of Perth’s lost treasures, for over 50 years the Embassy Ballroom hosted hundreds of performances by the cream of WA’s entertainers and performers, as well as sublime international guest artists.
Kicking off our Homegrown season, WAYJO will whisk you back to a bygone era of style and glamour with the most beloved big band jazz music of its time.
Special guest vocalists Victoria Newton and Anita Wardell will join all three of WAYJO’s famed orchestras to croon, swing and melt your heart.
Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom
with the WAYJO MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra, Tuesday & Wednesday Night Orchestras, plus very special guests Anita Wardell & Victoria Newton
Fri 27 Mar, 7.30pm
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
Tickets only from Perth Theatre Trust
WAYJO Statement on COVID-19
WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) have been monitoring Government directions on the COVID-19 pandemic. The WAYJO Board and Staff have developed Business Continuity and Risk Management Plans to ensure the safety and health of our young members and the viability of the company moving forwards.
After careful deliberation, WAYJO have cancelled all public activities and rehearsals until May 31.
These activities include:
- Previously announced cancellations of Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom and Jazz for Juniors,
- South West Regional Tour
- Polka Dots and Moonbeams, featuring Kristin Berardi
- Weekly rehearsal programs for our 54 musicians.
WAYJO envisages more cancellations of events in the future, a blow to Australian artists who were the focus of our 2020 Homegrown season. However, WAYJO recognises the insecure nature of artists’ livelihoods during the current climate, and is endeavouring to support all contracted and casual artists during this time, including proceeding with our 2020 commissioning program.
WAYJO also recognises the loss of income for Back and Front of House staff at the venues we perform in, and hope that these arts workers, many of them casual employees, receive the support they require.
The Board and Management at WAYJO will continue to re-evaluate the program in the coming months, and encourage those who are able to continue to support the sector by donating or purchasing music from affected artists.
WAYJO has built the future of Australian jazz for 37 years, and we are committed to delivering on this mission throughout 2020 and beyond.
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Contacts
Simon Keen
WAYJO General Manager
simon.keen@wayjo.com
+61 8 9471 1950
Justine Thornley
WAYJO Marketing
marketing@wayjo.com
+61 8 9471 1950
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WAYJO Statement on Concert Cancellations
WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) are sad to announce the cancellation of our first two concerts of the year, Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom and Jazz for Juniors shows.
WAYJO is a small arts company but everything we do is with our members in mind. While audiences for these performances are tracking well under the 500 person limit set for gatherings per the Federal and State Governments’ directives, we also have a number of considerations to take into account when producing our concerts.
For Jazz for Juniors, don’t want to expose our youngest audiences and their carers to any risk.
Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom sales have suffered from a definite change in audience behaviour. Within all current health guidelines the performance could still go ahead, however the sheer cost of mounting this concert is no longer viable.
Those affected are entitled to a full refund of your ticket purchase. Perth Theatre Trust will process a full refund of your ticket costs and applicable handling fees onto the credit card that was used to purchase the tickets. You do not need to do anything. Please allow up to 15 business days for the refund to be processed.
If you paid in cash or with other payment methods, our box office team will contact you personally to organise your refund.
The Board and Staff at WAYJO will be monitoring all updates on the COVID-19 pandemic and reviewing all programming decisions based on stringent risk assessments.
WAYJO recognises the loss of income our sector is facing due to event cancellations or low attendance. With this in mind, WAYJO will endeavour to find the means to support in some way all contracted artists for their scheduled work in 2020, regardless of whether they are able to appear with WAYJO or not. We think this is an important show of support in our sector, and we hope that other arts organisations are able to do the same as much as practically possible. We wish we could also support the Front and Back of House workers who will suffer as a result of event cancellations, but we are not in a position to do so.
Finally, this is a time where WAYJO needs every ounce of support our friends and supporters can provide. If you have tickets to a cancelled show, please consider a donation to the company. If you have the capacity, talk to us about the meaningful impact every donation has for our company. We’d love as many of our supporters as possible to set up a weekly $5 donation to help keep the lights on. More information on donating can be found at wayjo.com/support
Most of all, we wish for our members, families, and supporters to stay healthy as we navigate through these difficult times. We hope to see you at a performance again in the very near future.
##
Contacts
Simon Keen
WAYJO General Manager
simon.keen@wayjo.com
+61 8 9471 1950
Justine Thornley
WAYJO Marketing
marketing@wayjo.com
+61 8 9471 1950
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WAYJO Kicks off 2020 with a Tribute to the Embassy Ballroom
PLEASE NOTE: In response to COVID-19, WAYJO sadly announce cancellation of Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom.
Ticket holders for this show; Perth Theatre Trust will process a full refund back to the credit card making the purchase, and be in touch with those who paid by cash or other methods.
You do not need to do anything.
Please allow up to 15 business days for the refund to be processed.
If you can, please consider a ticket refund or other donation to WAYJO at https://wayjo.com/support
Full statement: https://wayjo.com/covid-19-concert-cancellations
We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and hope to see you at another WAYJO performance in the near future.
One of Perth’s lost treasures, for over 50 years the Embassy Ballroom hosted hundreds of performances by the cream of WA’s entertainers and performers, as well as sublime international guest artists.
Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom, on the main stage of His Majesty’s Theatre Friday 27 March, will whisk you back to a bygone era of style and glamour with the most beloved big band jazz music of its time.
Special guest vocalists Victoria Newton and Anita Wardell join all three of WAYJO’s famed orchestras at His Majesty’s Theatre to croon, swing and melt your heart. These two vocalists, who were singing together in London during the 1990s, will entertain you with their style, vocal virtuosity and humour.
Victoria Newton states “I am so looking forward to the ‘Swinging at the Embassy Ballroom’ show because I get to work with the phenomenon that is WAYJO. The bands are so brilliant and it’s always such a joy to sing with their magnificent sound and swinging grooves behind you!”
“I can’t wait for this show” says Anita Wardell. “I’m so looking forward to making music with the amazing WAYJO orchestra and together share this wonderful art form with the audience… What an honour for me to sing with that lush and super swinging sound behind me.”
Tickets for this, and all season shows, are on sale now at Perth Theatre Trust.
For more information on WAYJO’s 2020 season, please visit wayjo.com/season
#WAYJO2020
Enjoy Jazz Under the Stars this November
Three Big Bands in One Stellar Night of Jazz
The West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra's highly successful American Jazz Story season culminates in their final show for 2019, Jazz Under the Stars at The Quarry Amphitheatre, Friday 22nd of November.
Celebrating a year of regional tours, high calibre US guest artists, and international exchanges to Japan and the USA, WAYJO’s three big bands bring the diverse styles of American Jazz to life in band-picked selections, offering highly-honed renditions of the music these rising stars of jazz adore.
From New York to Chicago, New Orleans to Las Vegas, Detroit, Hollywood and Cuba, WAYJO takes you on a jazz journey like no other this November.
Bring your picnic blanket, friends and family to enjoy some of the best big band jazz WA has to offer, all at one of Perth’s most picturesque venues.
Jazz Under the Stars
with the WAYJO MinterEllison Monday Night Orchestra, plus Tuesday and Wednesday Night Orchestras
Fri 22 Nov, 7.30pm
The Quarry Amphitheatre, City Beach
Tickets available from ticketmaster.com.au
Special thanks to TW Creative for our 2019 'American Jazz Story' season poster designs.
Jazz Under the Stars 2018 - photos by Tom Greble
“Jazz Under The Stars is the final performance for the WAYJO MinterElison Monday Night Orchestra (MNO). This is a great opportunity to present pieces of music from the concerts throughout of the year. This year MNO played a bunch of great shows from the New Orleans Concert at the start of the year, featuring New York Trombonist Mariel Bildsten, to playing some down and dirty blues Chicago style. In addition to reprising this repertoire we will also be performing a few new pieces featuring some Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald & Basie classics.
After a year of sold out performances, an extremely rewarding regional tour mixing with local communities and schools, and rehearsing every week, the band is fired up and ready for this final concert. Come down and see what WAYJO’s youngest band can do!”
Tuesday Night Orchestra Musical Director, Marty Pervan
"2019 has seen TNO performing a diverse variety of big band music sourced form the American big band tradition, including, Las Vegas/cabaret, Motown and Afro-Cuban styles as well as music from the great American songbook - jazz standards that have become an indelible part of the big band idiom.
Coming in hot off the back of an extremely successful regional tour, the TNO Quarry concert set will be a true journey through all of these sub-genre's and more. We are really looking forward to ripping up the stage with a bit of something for everyone that's bound to leave you smiling and tapping your feet."
Wednesday Night Orchestra Musical Director, and WAYJO Artistic Director, Dr Mace Francis
"2019 has been a landmark season for WAYJO, celebrating the birthplace of the music we love in 'An American Jazz Story'.
Each month our band members took audiences on a sonic journey to cities that contributed to musical styles that have not only influenced jazz, but also modern music.
We welcomed two very special guests from New York City, saxophonist Dick Oatts (of The Village Vanguard) and trombonist Mariel Bildsten (Evan Sherman Big Band) that workshopped our bands intensely, evoking the very best performances from each musician.
Diving deep and crafting their understanding of these historically significant works, WAYJO has already performed to over 8,000 ticketed attendees this season, experiencing higher attendance rates over the previous year.
I hope you'll come along to celebrate our final show for the 2019 season, and experience these rising stars of jazz and contemporary music before they’re snapped up interstate and overseas!"
The Artemis Project 2019
WAYJO's Young Women in Jazz Program Leader Gemma Farrell presents the Artemis Project - a new platform for Perth’s leading female jazz artists.
Showcasing music by Australia’s great female composers and arrangers, the Artemis Orchestra, joined by some of WA Youth Jazz Orchestra's emerging female performers, will open your ears to fresh new sounds.
We briefly spoke to Gemma ahead of the upcoming show, Saturday 19 October, at the Ellington Jazz Club in Perth.
Why/when did you start Artemis Orchestra?
I formed the Artemis Orchestra in 2017. I was preparing for that year's Young Women in Jazz workshops with Kate Pass, Talya Valenti and Alana Macpherson, three phenomenally talented jazz musicians and composers. I was reflecting on the work we do for the workshops, how much I enjoy working with these women, and how there is not enough opportunity to showcase the music of the incredible female jazz musicians we have in Perth. It was also the height of the #metoo era, so I wanted to create a safe space for women to make music together, and for their work as performing musicians and composers to be celebrated. I also think a lot about my own students when I put projects together. Normally, when you go out to see a big band in Perth, you see a band full of straight, white, able bodied men, and maybe a few women. I wanted to create a more diverse band so that all of my students could look at the band and think "yeah, I could do that one day." Most Perth boys have that already, but unfortunately I think with the way things are at the moment, a young girl is likely to look at your average Perth big band and think "wow, it's really hard to be a women in jazz." It's not that we don't have the talent either, as you will see from our gig, but it's just that no one else is shining a light on it.
Why did you call the ensemble Artemis?
I was uncomfortable with the idea of having the word "women" in the title, because we're not exclusive. As much as the project does showcase the work of Australian women, we don't have anywhere near as many women as men in the Perth jazz scene, so if we need the help of men I want them to feel welcome (in this concert we have two lovely men joining us). I would also warmly welcome any transgender or non-binary band members. I wanted to go for a Greek name to salute our Sydney friends, the Sirens big band, who did this a long time before we did. Eventually I read about Artemis, the goddess of hunting, wild animals, childbirth and protector of young women. The last part in particular seemed very apt, and I also liked the fact that there was the word "Art" in there as well.
Who's performing?
The band for the Saturday concert is made up of women who are professionals playing in the Artemis Orchestra, women who play with Artemis regularly but are also members of WAYJO, and WAYJO members. In putting the band together, I offered the opportunity to all the female members of WAYJO. When I found out how many were available, I looked at the gaps we had and hired members of Artemis to fill those gaps. We had two more gaps after that, there were no female drummers in WAYJO and Artemis' regular drummer was unavailable. We also needed another trombonist, and so to fill those gaps, we have the amazing Julius Rogers and Alex Parkinson from WAYJO's WNO joining us.
The full band is:
Vocals - Laura Igglesden and Lucy Iffla (Artemis and WAYJO)
Alto 1 - Tessa Campbell (Artemis and WAYJO)
Alto 2 - Shaniqa Ratnasigam and Holly Forster (WAYJO)
Tenor 1 - Claire Keet (Artemis and WAYJO)
Tenor 2 - Dee More (WAYJO)
Baritone - Jemima Mills (Artemis and WAYJO)
Trombone 1 - Alex Parkinson (WAYJO)
Trombone 2 - Holli Hatherley (Artemis and WAYJO)
Trombone 3 - Halle Mitchell (WAYJO)
Bass Trombone - Yvonne Gygli-Howell (Artemis)
Trumpet 1 - Charlie Teakle (Artemis and WAYJO)
Trumpet 2 - Jess Fiocco (Artemis)
Trumpet 3 - Jenny Bylund (WAYJO)
Trumpet 4 - Julia Wallace (Artemis and WAYJO)
Guitar - Candice Susnjar (Artemis)
Piano - Kirsten Symczycz (Artemis)
Bass - Kate Pass (Artemis)
Drums - Julius Rogers (WAYJO)
Percussion - Imogen Thompson (Artemis)
What might audience members most enjoy about this show?
We are performing some incredible compositions which they will likely have never heard before, some composed by members of the band including Candice Susnjar and Kate Pass. Everyone who wants to have a go at soloing is soloing. It's a going to be a real showcase of home grown talent. There a lots of powerful numbers, some Latin charts (my personal favourite thing is whenever Imogen whips out her triangle), it's two sets of bangers.
I'm so grateful to WAYJO for agreeing to do this once a year and I hope to see as many people there supporting this initiative as possible.
Late Jazz at The Maj: Prints
Music generated by Meg Davidson: the sound result of our latest adventures, and some revisitation of strong inspirations up until this juncture. Quintet format, small-chamber-jazz-but-it-shan’t-be-the-alienating-tiresome-type.
Quite heavily inspired by recent travels and the resulting musical discoveries. If that’s too vague a description for you, come through and let your ears enlighten your auditory cortex of those discoveries disguised in musical abstractions... You may detect influences of: Maria Schneider, Esperanza Spalding, Nubya Garcia... One may also detect tinges of technological-frustrations and the results of suffocating in a sea of vacuous mass media.
Who can rule out the possibility that this may be your last chance of hearing honest live music before this AGI apocalypse hits? Wouldn’t want to find out you missed out too late, and spend those future VR-trapped years regretting that seemingly inconsequential decision not to…
Prints are:
Meg Davidson - Saxophone
Julia Wallace - Trumpet
Will Britto - Keys
Kieran Barnes - Bass
Liam Hickey - Drums
Entry is FREE with tickets to the Saturday evening Jazz at The Maj: Everybody Needs Somebody to Love show, or $10 for just this Late show.
SHOWAYJO: A Cross-Cultural Jazz Exploration
SHOWAYJO is a special collaboration between musicians from the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) in Perth, Western Australia and exchange partners from the Showa University of Music in Kawasaki, Japan. The two groups will come together to form a cross cultural big band playing classic big band repertoire as well as premiering a special new composition created by all the band members. WAYJO's Ricki Malet (trumpet) and Showa University's Masa Ikeda (trombone) will also share the stage with these young musicians.
Presented by WAYJO, and proudly supported by North West Shelf Gas over the past 5 years, this Cultural Exchange Through Music project joins talented performers across the hemispheres in a way the transcends linguistic boundaries.
You can preview a little of last year's collaboration HERE.
The latest 10-track SHOWAYJO collaboration CD is free on entry (while stocks last).
Enjoy this special night of live, cross-cultural jazz exploration - for one night only!
SHOWAYJO: A Cross-Cultural Jazz Exploration
Sat 21 Sep, 7.00pm
The Ellington Jazz Club, Northbridge
Tickets from ellingtonjazz.com.au
Afro Cuban Explosion - Geraldton
Feel the vibes of samba, bossa nova, and salsa as WAYJO turns the heat up with Afro-Cuban inspired jazz - in Geraldton for for one night only!
From Dizzy Gillespie’s Manteca, a fan favourite at WAYJO gigs, to music by band leaders and percussionists extraordinaire like Tito Puente, the Afro-Cuban Allstars and Buena Vista Social Club, WAYJO’s Tuesday Night Orchestra, conducted by Marty Pervan, will offer up some serious big band energy that will get you up and dancing.
Don’t miss this exciting FREE community concert, presented by the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra, and supported by Healthway Act-Belong-Commit.
WAYJO TNO presents The Afro-Cuban Explosion
Wed 18 Sep, 7.00pm - 8.00pm
Queens Park Theatre - Foyer
Community Event, FREE tickets available 3 June from Queens Park Theatre qpt.cgg.wa.gov.au