Vocalist and composer Amanda Ekery collaborates with everyone, literally. Amanda works with all to create projects that invite others to explore and share their stories. She weaves her experience in improvisatory creative music, research, and jazz into her compositions, workshops, and performances. Her compositions have earned support from New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and the Jerome Foundation, and have been featured at the Portland Jazz Festival, Panama Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center. Amanda earned a 2022 ASACAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer's Award honorable mention for her composition “Three Days” which is part of Árabe, a collaboration with the Syrian Ladies Club, her family, and neighbors about Syrian immigration to El Paso/Mexico and the influence these mixed cultures had on film, food, economy and music. She is the founder of El Paso Jazz Girls, a non-profit organization for young female musicians that serves as a direct, practical intervention for gender equity in her hometown jazz community and which earned Amanda the 2022 Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalist Association. Amanda holds a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas. She is on faculty at the New School and Fordham University and a regular at the Cortelyou Library in Brooklyn, NY.
While in residency at the University of Houston, Ekery will work with students to write songs and play selections from her upcoming album, Árabe, culminating in a free performance at Asia Society Texas' public art installation Rafael Domenech and Tomas Vu: Heat Silhouette, co-comissioned by the Mitchell Center. She'll be collaborating with the Community Arts Academy at the University of Houston as well as with members of the public to realize the Aprill 5th performance. All are welcome to join the creative process! Click on the link below for details and to sign up.
Apply to be a part of Árabe! >
aekerymusic.com >