EVENT: The Great Song Cycle: Mastering the art of doing everything you love, and getting away with it

Internationally acclaimed musician and author, Joanna Wallfisch, visits IAS to present a masterclass, performance and discussion on how to balance and combine the concepts of career, vocation and one’s life passions. A songwriting and vocal coach, she will offer tips of conveying story through the written word and also through music.

In 2016 Joanna released her third album on Sunnyside Records. She was living in NYC at the time, feeling jaded by the thankless hustle of a musician’s life and sorely aware of the sacrifices she’d made to live it. In a moment of inspiration she decided to recall her adventurous side and head to California to tour her new album, usurping the usual cars and buses and instead travel by bicycle. She called the tour “The Great Song Cycle”. What transpired was a concert tour turned effervescent. Not only did it alter her perception of her own strength, physical and emotional resources, but the journey inspired her to write her debut memoir, published by UWA Press, and record and release her latest record ‘Far Away From Any Place Called Home’, thus combing her passion for adventure with her career as a musician. The story and music have since taken her around the world, and she is now in Australia to tour the book and album... by bicycle, of course!

Joanna’s unique musical background shines through in her own compositional style, evoking her classical routes with her love of jazz, art-song, folk and pop, pushing boundaries of genre and stylistic expectations. She is a master in the art of live vocal looping and as a multi-instrumentalist plays baritone ukulele, piano, flute, Indian shruti box, kalimba and melodica. Her music defies genre classification as she effortlessly imbues her songs with nuances of jazz, classical, art-song, and folk, carrying her “clear-eyed poetry” (Boston Globe) and “striking vocals” (Hothouse). Her songwriting extends beyond just lyrics and melody - Joanna also arranges for ensembles including string quartets, winds, a cappella voices and more. She first studied to be a painter at Central Saint Martins, London. This led her to Paris, where she sang on the bridges of the Seine with the “Rene Miller Wedding Band”. Following this formative time she did a masters in jazz at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2012 she moved to New York City where she forged an indelible musical path, appearing and collaborating with musicians including Dan Tepfer, Wynton said, “overflowed with creativity and musical resources entitled “Far Away From Any Place Called Home”.