Lauren Tsamouras + Novak Manojlovic:

Lauren Tsamouras is a pianist, composer and improviser specialising in Jazz and Improvised music. She leads and composes for her contemporary jazz piano/double bass duo 'Another Green World' who released their debut album 'Mytera' in March 2023. Ensembles and projects Lauren is currently a member of include 'Pharos', led by Hannah James; 'Volant' led by Matt Ottignon and Hinano Fujisaki’s 'Home Is'. In 2021, she was nominated for the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award.

Novak Manojlovic is a musician based in Sydney whose work describes a fascination with contrasts; new and old, acoustic and electronic, diatonic and atonal, abrasive and meditative. In navigating the friction between conflicting aesthetics across the breadth of his output, one can hear his efforts to move traditional composition and performance practice into a contemporary context through sonic manipulation, visual augmentation and harmonic iconoclasm. He has written and performed works which defy easy categorisation for a range of settings - from solo piano to orchestra - demonstrating an output spanning electro-acoustic, classical, improvised and contemporary musics. Novak’s modernistic and individual was recognised in his reception of the Freedman Fellowship (Jazz) in 2019.

Here, playing together for the first time, they will present a set of compositions and improvisations curated specifically for the 2 piano format.

Lauren Tsamouras - piano 1
Novak Manojlovic - piano 2

Tom Botting Quintet:

NZ born double bassist Tom Botting made the well-trodden trek across the ditch to Sydney in 2011, where he quickly became ensconced in the local jazz scene. His deep sound, rhythmic sensibility and creativity have since made him one of Sydney’s first call bassists. Tom placed third in the 2015 National Jazz Awards and graduated with a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2019.

Tom will be presenting quintet music from two live albums, ‘Rogue’ and ‘Vagabond’, recorded in Wellington, New Zealand during COVID with the help of a Creative NZ grant. The music is inspired by the landscape of Aotearoa NZ and aims to evoke the soaring mountains, rugged coastline, and Auckland traffic jams associated with the country. Tom has assembled a crack team of some of Sydney’s finest musicians to bring the works to life:

Will Vinson - Saxophone
Peter Koopman - Guitar
Wilbur Whitta - Piano
Tim Firth - Drums

TICKETS: $25/$15
DOORS: 7:30pm
MUSIC: 8:00pm

Supported by Church Street Studios