Date Last Modified: 2/24/99
Home
Discography
Since the home page of Sonia Jacobsen had not been updated since December 1996 (shame on us!) there are a lot of events to mention in the current news section.
December 1996: The French National Jazz Orchestra (l'ONJ)
had a composition contest take place in Belfort, France. The
orchestra selected 7 finalists of an international body of
applicants, who were then present for the finals. Three
prizes were offered by three seperate voting panels: the
official jury, the members of the orchestra, and the
audience. To Sonia's big surprise, she went home with two
out of three of them! The jury prize and the audience prize.
Hear a sample of the winning composition Melting Pot here:
Discography
Read a press clipping about the event (in French). Belfort press clipping
Writing
for big band music wasn't really something that interested
Sonia before she participated in
l'ONJ's competition. But
encouraged from winning the competition she founded the
15-piece Mosaic Orchestra together with Tomas Granet. The
style was ethno-inspired groove-oriented music for large
ensemble (10 horns and 5 rhythm). Mosaic Orchestra performed
steadily in Izzy Bar in New York (in 1998) until Sonia and
Tomas decided to go each their musical directions.
Hear a recording with Mosaic Orchestra here: Discography.
Sonia brought the string quartet No Strings Attached to the
studio and recorded Textures of Time. Hear samples here:
Discography
Sonia has also received several grants and awards the last
two years:
- An award for artistic achievement from the American Scandinavian Society in 1997
- The American Composers Forum's Commissioning Program Award (1997) for "Symphony For Jazz Orchestra, Strings and Percussion".
- The American Music Center's
Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Award (1998)
for her "Chamber Concerto N° One".
(see Bio for information on other awards)
Once No Strings Attached (see
Current Projects)
was performing in the Knitting Factory, NY, conductor
Bernd Ruf happened to be there. He was so thrilled with
Sonia's writing for strings in a jazz context, that he
immediately commissioned her to write a string orchestra
piece (Chamber Concerto N°
One) for his CD project NY Stories with Philharmonia
Virtuosi and violinist Gregor Huebner. Hear samples here:
Discography
In October 1998 the CD was finally released on Mediaphone-Madacy, and the Chamber Concerto N° One was premiered by Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra October 10 in Stuttgart.
In November 1998, ASCAP sponsored a
showcase performance at the Jazz Times Convention in New
York. Here she is leading her quintet (consisting of soprano
sax, violin, tuba, bass and percussion).
In 1998, Sonia won the ASCAP / IAJE
Benny Carter award, where she was commissioned to write an
orchestral piece to be premiered at the IAJE convention in
Anaheim, California, January 7, 1999. She had the choice of
up to 18 musicians, so she chose to mix a string trio within
a big band. Here she is conducting the Kim Richmond
Orchestra:
and taking a bow:
