SIMA Winter Jazz Series – Sandy Evans & Peter Dasent

As a species, our inquisitive nature is what has seen us make big discoveries and leap forward both economically and socially. The ability to conduct research and satiate this biological urge is often hindered by money, but for two of the artists performing at this years SIMA Winter Jazz series, the Churchill Fellowships helped them overcome this hurdle.

Both Sandy Evans and Peter Dasent were given their grants to do niche research into their areas of passion. For Evans it was North and South Indian traditional music, particularly how it could be blended with jazz. For Dasent his focus was on the work of composer Nino Rota, who was the composer for 17 of Federico Fellini’s films.

In Evans’ case the grant allowed her to travel to Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai to work with India’s leading musicians. After completing her journey and research Evans was able to develop her show Kapture, which originally started out as a dance piece about Nelson Mandela’s cellmate Ahmed Kathrada’s writing. The show has since been expanded to a full score that brings together ideas from jazz and Indian music around this important central theme. Kapture “doesn’t get to be performed very often so we’re really excited to perform it for SIMA,” said Evans.

For Peter Dasent his interest in Rota was piqued after he was given a cassette of La Dolce Vita, which he found himself “playing in the car all the time” as it became his “fall back when I couldn’t decide what to listen to”. After then doing as much research as was possible in Australia, information surrounding Rota was extremely limited at the time, thus Peter’s decision to apply for the Churchill Fellowship so pursue his research.

When Peter found out that his proposal had been accepted, he said he and his wife were both “gobsmacked, and danced around the room”.

Dasent will be performing the Bravo Nino Rota show with his band The Umbrellas during the Winter Jazz Series. Peter described the show as “a concert with a little bit of theatricality and Fellini in there” which is “something special when they improvise over Rota’s classy Italian music”.

Until Aug 27. Seymour Centre, Cnr Cleveland Street and City Road, Chippendale. $15-$45+b.f (multi-tix packages available). Tickets & info: sima.org.au