Sylvia Schmidt Quartet feat. Robin Porter & Germana Stella La Sorsa

Sylvia Schmidt is a German vocalist from the three-country corner of Saxony. Since arriving in London in 2008, she has established herself as a versatile soloist (Glasshopper, Don’t Problem) and an in-demand ensemble musician (White Flower, Ibibio Sound Machine). Sylvia has carefully crafted her voice into a precise instrument, a tool which she effortlessly wields to tell beautiful and emotive stories in song.

She presents a rich mix of jazz, blues and neo soul, lyrically touching on themes of friendship, community, creative and social emancipation and the on-going pursuit of authenticity and mental health.

SPECIAL GUESTS:

After launching her intimate Appalachian folk album ‘As Long As Songbirds Sing’ alongside guitar virtuoso James Kitchman last year, Sylvia returns to the stage to premiere some brand-new original music. Accompanied by a stellar jazz rhythm section of Christian Prior on piano, Joe Boyle on bass and Gaspar Sena on drums.

Her career has taken her across Europe, specialising predominantly in original and avant-garde musical projects, but her strong technical abilities have ensured that she is also in-demand as a commercial and session vocalist.

The projects Sylvia has led and been invited to perform in demonstrate her natural comfortability in different musical and cultural settings. Sylvia’s exploration of disparate projects with ease, but sensitivity, shows that the labels given to the projects she is part of, be it “Jazz”, “Folk” or “Classical”, are but words which do little to constrain the open and willing human spirit. As a result, her work spans intimate settings, such as the guitar-voice duo Kitchman / Schmidt to the roaring and raucous, with the Slavic Space Jazz orchestra Mimika Ensemble. Sylvia writes and performs original music for the pensively groove-driven European Jazz band, Esquivo, as well as for the contemporary classical trio White Flower, which explores the textures, dynamics and sonic possibilities of three solo instruments. She performs regularly in choral settings with London Contemporary Voices, has collaborated with modern London Jazz trio, Glasshopper, Jazzwise Rising Star pianist Maria Chiara Argiro (Kinkajous), Thodoris Ziarkas (Valia Calda) and Mike De Souza (Big Bad Wolf), to name but a few. She has performed at the international Water Tower Art Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria and co-composed music for the Catalonian documentary film Pan Seco.

Some recent performance highlights include performing with London Contemporary Voices at Southbank Centre and Union Chapel, at Soho Jazz powerhouses Pizza Express Jazz Club and The Spice of Life, as well as London’s finest proponents of the avant-garde, Vortex Jazz Club and Café Oto in Dalston. Sylvia has toured a variety of Jazz festivals in the UK and Ireland including Edinburgh, Fife, Derry, Cork & Kinsale, Marlborough and EFG London Jazz Festival. She earned her BA (Hons.) in Jazz Performance at Middlesex University’s renowned jazz department and a PGCert in Performance Teaching at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Sylvia is also a dedicated musical educator specialising in group improvisation and circle-singing workshops. She leads the Church Army women’s shelter choir in Marylebone.