Azerbaijani pianist to join Swanage Jazz Festival

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Baku-born, globe-trotting composer and pianist Amina Figarova will perform at the Swanage Jazz Festival in the UK.

The festival is promoted by a group of fans and is non-profit making. It started in 1990 with a small marquee and one smaller indoor venue with about 300 tickets. 

British audience will enjoy ten new compositions by  the Azerbaijani pianist, Azertac reported.

Figarova attended the Baku Conservatory, where she studied to be a classical concert pianist while a young girl in Azerbaijan. This was followed by a course of study in jazz performance at the Rotterdam Conservatory before entering and completing her studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

The pianist has toured extensively, developing a tight-knit ensemble that has attained a distinctive and inimitable voice by concentrating on all-original repertoire for almost 18 years. During that period, Amina Figarova collaborated with musicians in the U.S. and Europe.

Her sextet  has triumphed at the main stage of the Newport Jazz Festival, been invited repeatedly to New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and won critical acclaim in Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Amsterdam and New York.

Throughout all tracks, Amina's classically founded touch, her lilting melodies, luminous harmonies, often understated yet always propulsive rhythms and star soloists come together.