Sarah McKenzie Quintet to Represent Berklee on 04 Jazz Festival

Singer and pianist Sarah McKenzie, a May 2014 Berklee College of Music graduate, will lead her quintet in two performances on the 57th Monterey Jazz Festival, Friday, Sept. 19 at 9:30 on the Garden Stage, and again on Saturday, September 20, at 5:30 p.m., in the Coffee House.

McKenzie's latest album, Close Your Eyes, won the Best Jazz Album ARIA award (Australian GRAMMY), and she has performed with artists like Michael Bubl , Chris Botti, Enrico Rava and John Patitucci, and performed her own material with The Boston Pops at Symphony Hall. Already known for her mature instrumental and vocal phrasing, this international rising star has demonstrated experience beyond her years.

With repertoire featuring Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Shirley Horn, and Johnny Mercer, expect her Monterey performances to feature an array of Sarah's own originals, and fresh takes on the Great American Songbook. She is currently working on her third release with producer Brian Bacchus, featuring vibraphonist Warren Wolf and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.

McKenzie has chosen four top Berklee classmates to join her at Monterey: Daniel Rotem (Tel Aviv, Israel), a May graduate of Berklee and a member of the 2016 class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz college program; guitarist Andrew Marzotto (Toronto, Canada), a member of the college's Berklee Global Jazz Institute, led by artistic director Danilo P rez; bassist Tabari Lake (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands), is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, and a Berklee Presidential Scholar; drummer Rodney Rocques (Sarasota, FL), is a full-tuition recipient at Berklee, who has performed at Montreux, Jazz a Vienne, and Umbria Jazz.

Sarah was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to Berklee in 2012. Since coming to the college, she has had the opportunity to perform her own compositions at Boston Symphony Hall, Umbria Jazzs Winter and Summer festivals, Jazz Ahead in Bremen, Germany, and the Riccione and Lucca Donna Jazz Festivals, in Italy. She graduated from Berklee with an Artist's Diploma in Jazz Performance in May of this year.

McKenzie is endorsed by Yamaha in Australia. Her Saturday performance at 5:30 Pacific time will be streamed live worldwide by Yamaha Corporation to special subscribers of Yamaha's DisklavierTV service. Her performance will move the keys and pedals of connected Disklavier pianos in perfect sync with the video and audiostream http://www.yamaha.com/usa/disklaviertv/eventlist.html

See her video, That's It, I Quit

Rob Hayes is the Assistant Vice President of External Affairs. Media inquiries: rhayes@berklee.edu.

LINK:	http://www.berklee.edu/news/sarah-mckenzie-quintet-represent-berklee-2...
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