Sandy Evans

Dr Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned composer and saxophonist with a passion for improvisation and new music. She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s, toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia, and been featured on over 40 albums. She leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, and co-leads Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. She is a member of Mara!, The catholics, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), Ten Part Invention, austraLYSIS, Friends of Kim Sanders, Atma Blu, Waratah, Andrew Robson’s Tallis project, Ben Walsh’s Orkestra of the Underground and SNAP. She has performed with many leading jazz musicians including Andrea Keller, Paul Grabowsky, Silke Eberhard, Ingrid Jensen, Judy Bailey, Han Bennink and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2018 Sandy toured Germany and Sweden. She was a featured soloist in Lloyd Swanton’s widely acclaimed Ambon project.

Sandy has an extensive composition portfolio and has received many commissions from leading jazz, improvising and new music ensembles. Recent commissions include a suite in honour of legendary Australian saxophonist the late Bernie McGann, and a CD RockPoolMirror based on photographs by Tall Poppies’ Belinda Webster. Wesleyan University Press released Sandy’s composition Testimony, a major work about the life and music of Charlie Parker with poetry by the Pulitzer Prize winning American poet Yusef Komunyakaa, in the US in 2013. Sandy composed Kali and The Time of Change, the title track of The Sirens debut CD.

📷 Karen Steains