Meg Okura – FYC
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Please consider Meg Okura’s album Isaiah for the categories Jazz Performance and Large Jazz Ensemble Album, ‘Jubberish’ for Instrumental Composition, and ‘African Skies’ for Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella.
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“Queen of Chamber Jazz” Meg Okura Releases New Album Isaiah
Adhyâropa Records is thrilled to announce Isaiah, the new album by jazz violinist Meg Okura and The Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble and special guests Randy Brecker and Sam Newsome.
Meg Okura, long recognized as a virtuoso violinist, is now surging as a contemporary jazz composer. With a singular voice, she has earned a string of prestigious awards and commissions in recent years. Honored with the International Society of Jazz Arrangers & Composers (ISJAC) Fundamental Freedoms Commission and the Symphonic Jazz Orchestra’s George Duke Commissioning Prize, she presents Isaiah, her Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble’s most ambitious recording to date. Conceived as something of a musical memoir, the album reflects personal history and artistic milestones — from a stirring tribute to Michael Brecker, featuring trumpet legend Randy Brecker, to works born of major commissions and residencies.
The album features Jubberish, commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works, and Rice Country, composed at Aaron Copland’s historic home. Praised by The New York Times for its “grandiloquent beauty that transitions easily from grooves to big cascades to buoyant swing,” Okura now offers Isaiah as a defining statement of her artistry: the unmistakable voice of a composer at the forefront of contemporary jazz.