In the mood for some music: Aga Zaryan

Yes, it was about pictures. But then I changed my mind.

Working on a multicultural environment has some advantages. You get to know people from all over the world, and if the mood is good, you begin to share things with them.

Exchanging few tips on learning how to insult in other languages is among the first thing you normally do. As time passes and confidence settles down, other things may come up while exchanging stories about personal live experiences. Sometimes, somebody will cook its local delights for the rest of us. On other occasions the name of a rarely known local movie that we shouldn't miss comes up to illuminate our knowledge.

In this case, I was illuminated by a polish jazz singer named Aga Zaryan. I came to know her on one of this cultural exchanges with a polish friend. He passed to me a vast amount of information about polish and eastern European music, so much that I still couldn't hear all of them although a couple of months has long gone by.

So, back to Aga. As I said, she is a polish jazz singer, and she is fantastic. Her voice gets your attention easily, as she slides it through the eclectic instruments that completes its compact and talented group. A little bit about her biography, as it is stated in her own web site:

"Graduated with honors from the Fryderyk Chopin Public School of Music on Bednarska St. in Warsaw, where she also completed the post-graduate Jazz Studies program under the tutelage of legendary Polish jazz vocalist Ewa Bem.

In 1998 she was awarded First Prize at the International Jazz Vocalists' Competition in Zamość. As a two-time recipient of international study grants, Aga travelled to the United States to participate in the Stanford Jazz Workshop and Jazz Camp West programs, which gave her the opportunity to hone her talents under the direction of world-renowned vocalists like Rebecca Paris and Madeline Eastman, among others. In 1997 she performed at the Warsaw Fall Festival of Modern Music with an orchestra conducted by Jacek Kasprzyk, and appeared with a string quartet at the “Passage” Panorama of 20th Century Music festival the following year. In 2000, she returned to the United States, performing a jazz repertoire with pianist Michał Tokaj.

March 2002 saw the release of Aga's debut recording “My Lullaby”, on which was accompanied by Tomasz Szukalski, Darek Oleszkiewicz, Michał Tokaj and Łukasz Żyta. The CD received excellent reviews in Poland, as well as in Japan, where it is officially distributed. “My Lullaby” was also nominated for the Polish Phonographic Academy's “Fryderyk” award.

Since that time, Aga has appeared at a large number of clubs and festivals in Poland, the UK, the USA, Isreal and the Czech Republic. In Jazz Forum Magazine's annual Jazz Top Readers' Poll she was recognized as one of Poland's leading jazz vocalists in 2004 and 2005. In 2004 she became a licentiate of the Department of Musical Therapy at the Academy of Music in Łódź, where her work focused on the incorporation of certain elements of jazz music into the process of musical therapy and teaching music to children and youths. In 2006, she received an award at the “Jazz Struggle” International Jazz Vocalists' Competition. "

Here you have a sample of her last disc, "Picking up the pieces". The song is called "Woman's work", and it was composed by her bassist, Darek Oles. Enjoy it!