NEW ALBUM
Our brand new album, Afrika Love, is out now! Buy it here!
HIGH PRAISE
Alchemy Sound Project’s first release, Further Explorations, was cited as one of the best CD’s of 2016 by Downbeat Magazine and Britain’s UKVibe Magazine.
ERICA
Erica Lindsay and Alchemy Sound Project were proud recipients of the Chamber Music America 2017 New Jazz Works Commission, made possible with the generous support of the Doris Duke Foundation.
Erica was a recipient of the Composer Now 2017 Creative Residencies selection, in partnership with The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Asian Cultural Council. She collaborated with Tibetan choreographer/dance artist Wangjia Zhaxi in a weeklong residency in November 2017.
Jay Hunter reviewed Erica’s performance with Jeff Siegel’s Sextet at A Place for Jazz. Read here.
SUMI
Sumi Tonooka was a 2017 recipient of the Senators Jazz Legacy Award, which she received in Philadelphia. She shared the award with a handful of Philadelphia’s jazz luminaries including, Odean Pope, Marshall Allen and Tony Williams.
Sumi was a recipient of the 2016 Music Alive: New Partnership Residency grant, through New Music USA, where she served as composer in residence with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of David Delta Geir. Several of her original works were premiered, including Full Circle for Orchestra and Mingus Mood; Jazz Musings on a Theme for the Dakota Wind Quartet.
Sumi has relocated to Philadelphia, after a stint of working and composing in Seattle, WA.
Sumi relocated to Philadelphia after several years working and composing in Seattle, WA. She returned to Seattle in early 2018 to perform in a live concert recording of her composition For Malala, a work for jazz trio and orchestra. She is now teaching and performing in the greater Philadelphia area – to arrange a private lesson in piano or composition, email her at Sumi.Tonooka@gmail.com
SALIM
Salim Washington is enjoying renewed musical life after releasing his first CD recorded in South Africa, Sankofa. The CD and the band are being very well received.
Salim’s album, Dogon Revisited, got a lovely “Editor’s Pick” review in Jazz Times, June 2018. Read here.
Salim is playing in a multi-generational band with Mandla Mlangeni’s Amandla Freedom Ensemble in a project called Born to be Black: A Celebration of the Conscious Soul, with an all star lineup, including drummer Louis Moholo Moholo, whom Washington used to listen to in the Brotherhood of Breath and the Blue Notes as a teenager. Additionally, Salim is very happy to be part of trumpeter Sydney Mavundla’s tour, and also the tribute to Bheki Mseleku with band leader Sanele Pakhathi.
Salim was commissioned from The Jazz Foundation to write big band charts of his music and also the music of South African star pianist, Nduduzo Makhathini.
DAVID
David Arend composed a symphonic work for the Bellingham Festival Orchestra under the baton of Michael Palmer in 2019. He was thrilled to be writing music for his many friends in the orchestra, having been a member of the bass section there for 10 seasons.
David completed two scores for short films in 2017, Changyou’s Journey and Red Light – look for links at DavidArend.com. Those rewarding projects brought David together with filmmakers Perry Shen and Zhu Shen, designer Eauseenon, actress Yoa Mizuno and videographer Larabelle.
Changyou’s Journey won the Gold Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival 2018 Youth Film Showcase, and Best of Indie Youth Film Award at the 2018 Arizona International Film Festival.
SAMANTHA
Samantha Boshnack was selected as the 2018 Make Jazz Fellow. The Seventh Annual Make Jazz Fellowship is sponsored by the Herb Alpert Foundation to honor and support promising, emerging Jazz composers. 18th Street Arts Center provided Boshnack with a three-month fully-funded residency in Los Angeles. While there, she composed and rehearsed “Seismic Belt” with a band of LA musicians she assembled. At the end of the residency, they performed at Roth Hall in Santa Monica, presented by 18th Street Arts Center.
Sam released her fourth album as a band leader – Nellie Bly Project for the Sam Boshnack Quintet on Artists Recording Collective. The album is an illustrative and evocative musical portrait of a hero that Boshnack has admired since a young age. Bly was a 19th-century daredevil feminist and journalist. The music moves between the narrative and abstract, creating an imaginative world that channels Bly’s groundbreaking spirit. Nellie Bly Project has been very well received and was chosen as one of “The Best Jazz on Bandcamp.” To listen and read the reviews, go to Sam’s Nellie Bly Project page – Read here.