Public Concert: Saturday, November 2, 7 p.m.
Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue, Rock Island IL
Abbreviated Concerts: Tuesday, October 29, through Friday, November 1
Various Area Locales
Praised by the Ottawa Citizen as “an exceptionally cohesive band that has internalized all of the music's intricacies,” Canada's Allison Au Quartet serves as the latest guests in Quad City Arts Visiting Artists series, their October 29 through November 2 area performances showcasing the jazzy talents of a bandleader whom All About Jazz calls “a marvelous composer of engaging, accessible, and melodic tunes.”
A Juno Award winning jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger, Au was born to a Chinese father and Jewish mother, raised in the multicultural metropolis of Toronto, and was exposed to a wide array of musical styles. Finding herself captivated by the unhinged freedom of jazz, the genre became Au’s lab for self-expression, exploration, and musical experimentation. Her consequent work weaves a mosaic of influences into a seamless and soulful sound, a concoction steeped in the tradition of jazz but skillfully laced with elements of classical, pop, R&B, hip hop, Latin, and world music. Au earned her first Juno nomination for her debut album The Sky Was Pale Blue, Then Grey in 2013, and in 2016, she earned the Juno for “Best Jazz Album of The Year: Group” for Forest Grove. This year, she garnered another Juno nomination in that category for her most recent album Wander Wonder.
Formed in 2009 and currently featuring Todd Pentney on piano, Daniel Fortin on bass, and Fabio Ragnelli on drums, the Allison Au Quartet has toured extensively in Canada and the United States. The group was awarded the TD Jazz Fellowship Scholarship in 2011, the Alfred and Phyllis Balm Scholarship in 2012, and the Margareta and Benno Nigg Scholarship in 2013, and also won the 2017 Montreal Jazz Festival TD Grand Prix de Jazz. Additional accolades include the group receiving the 2017 Halifax Jazz Festival Sting Ray Rising Star Award and being named a 2017 finalist for the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Jazz Artist Award, with UK Vibe raving about the ensemble's”imaginatively written and performed modern jazz.”
The Allison Au Quartet plays its November 2 public concert at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center, with the event starting at 7 p.m. and admission $10-15, and a $50 PASS-event concert will be held at Davenport's EICC Urban Campus (101 West Third Street) at 6:30 p.m. on November 1. The musicians will also perform free, abbreviated versions of their full concert at LeClaire's Mississippi River Distilling Company & Cody Road Cocktail House (303 North Cody Road) at 6 p.m. on October 29; Muscatine's Wesley United Methodist Church (400 Iowa Avenue) at 2 p.m. on October 31; and Moline's Black Hawk College (Building 4, room 115, 6600 34th Avenue) at 11 a.m. on November 1.
For more information on the Allison Au Quartet's area residency, and more on the 2019-20 Visiting Artists season, call (309)793-1213 or visit QuadCityArts.com.
