APRA Award-winning composer and saxophonist Louisa Williamson is a ‘Jack’, or rather ‘Jill’, of many trades – a composer, a jobbing session and live musician, a teacher of music and a band leader. Her CV features gig-time and recording credits with local big-hitters such as L.A.B., Trinity Roots, Dawn Diver, Bret McKenzie Band, AJA, MA, Rob Ruha, Clear Path Ensemble, The Rodger Fox Big Band, Other Futures Big Band, Lord Echo and Louis Baker.

“I was initially playing classical music, in Taupo. Then I heard about the Youth Jazz Programme run by (Jazz Legend) Roger Fox. So, over the next couple of years I travelled down to Wellington to join in, play and learn. Like many of (my peers) Roger was a huge influence on me. Being able to play in big bands was a real buzz. I’ll be joining the Roger Fox Big Band for the tribute concert as part of the upcoming Jazz Festival.”

Her time with Fox led to serious study, clocking in the hours at New Zealand School of Music (Victoria University) from 2015-2020 to complete a Bachelor of Music – majoring, of course, in Jazz Performance (First Class Honours).Then she went on to do a Master of Music (specialising in Composition).

“I now teach improvisation, saxophone and ensemble class at Victoria University (New Zealand School of Music).”It’s a tricky thing, she says, because it’s not just the ideas but how you master the instrument, so that the ideas flow, you’re not fighting to control your instrument and forcing it to make the sounds you want. I teach the skills that can be applied to compose. ”A bit like teaching how to make new paint colours and how to apply them to a canvas.

As well as being a regular gigging and session musician, Williamson fronts her big band ensemble, to play her own original compositions. Her first album What Dreams May Come is loosely based on the 1998 fantasy drama featuring Robin Williams. It mixes a variety of styles from ambient, to traditional modern big band jazz, classical and Avant Garde jazz. It’s cinematic and sweeping. Consisting of four movements played by a seventeen-piece group. But, she says, whilst ‘through-scripted’, that is written in score, there’s room for some improvisation, if limited to a couple of solos. The album was recorded at Massey University Music School, with production help from Ben Lemi (Trinity Roots, Vera Ellen, Dawn Diver, Congress of Animals, French For Rabbits, etc.). At the Silver Scrolls last October she also took out the 2023 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award with Dream Within A Dream.

She has further plans to release a quintet album of more new compositions later this year. That’s once she’s done with WOW (World Of Wearable Arts) which is in production as she speaks, playing in the in supporting ensemble for the show. And her upcoming feature show at the Wellington Jazz Festival.

And that’s the reason we are talking.

The Chasm Where We Fall Into Each Other, which “explores the concept of division both literally and figuratively”, is a new piece commissioned by the Festival. “It’s easy to fall into the chasm you didn’t know was there,” she says. The chasm, inspired by Putuna Chasm, in the Wairarapa, is both physical and mental. It spans the ancient – the chasm is a centuries old Faultline with an underground river that flows through it to the surface – and the present. Chasms are rifts, politically, ideologically and artistically. Her composition, which will debut at the Festival this October is, she says a clash and a marriage of styles, each which bring with them their own social and political reference points – there is a blend of avant-garde jazz, classical, electronic, rap, and hip-hop. This is also the first time that she’s actively written accompanying lyrics, based on poetry, and to be sung by vocalists, upcoming Poneke based soul/rap singer Maarire Brunning-Kouka (aka MA) and NZ/Samoan Opera singer Lila Crichton. Their contributions will definitely twist the conventions of jazz as we know it and push the experimentation of Williamson’s work.

Williamson will also be performing about town during the festival in a number of other bands and is looking forward to the weekend’s indulgences in the genre, in all its forms. She’s keen to prove that dreams will come, even with your eyes and ears open!

The Wellington Jazz Festival runs from 16-20 October.

The Chasm Where We Fall Into Each Other: Louisa Williamson Thursday 17 October, San Fran, Wellington.

Photo Credit: Nick George

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