It is helpful to research the artist, using sources like Wikipedia , Music Magazine Reviews (Pitchfork, Rolling stone, NME etc.,) Artist Websites, etc…A synopsis of the life and music of this Issue’s featured artists appears below.

This Week’s Artists

DAVE HOLLAND

Dave Holland David Holland is an English Born October 1, 1946, in Wolverhampton, England, David Holland is a world-renowned jazz double bassist, composer, and bandleader with a career spanning over five decades. He is a highly influential figure in modern jazz, known for his versatile technique and numerous collaborations. He has lived in the United States since the early 1970s. His extensive discography ranges from solo performances to pieces for big band. Holland gained international recognition after joining Miles Davis’s band in 1968, playing on seminal albums like In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Born in Wolverhampton, England, Holland taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, then graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. He quit school at the age of 15 to pursue his profession in a pop band, but soon gravitated to jazz. By his late teens Holland began exploring an expanding palette of jazz styles and it was clear that music was Holland’s calling. After moving to London in 1964, Holland played double bass in small venues. Holland received a full-time scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the three-year programme. At 20, Holland was keeping a busy schedule in school, studios and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London’s premier jazz club, where he often played in bands that supported touring American jazz saxophonists. He also began a working relationship with Canada-born, England-based trumpeter Kenny Wheeler that continued until Wheeler’s death in 2014. In 1968, Miles Davis and Philly Joe Jones heard him at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Jones told Holland that Davis wanted him to join his band (replacing Ron Carter). Holland’s first recordings with Davis were in September 1968. After leaving Davis’s group, Holland briefly joined the avant-garde jazz group Circle, with Corea, saxophonist Anthony Braxton and percussionist Barry Altschul. By 1972, Holland relocated to upstate New York, and began recording under his own name. beginning a long-standing association with the Munich-based ECM label. Holland worked as a leader and as a sideman with many other jazz artists throughout the 1970s. Holland formed his first working quintet in 1983.

The bassist also continued to collaborate with his peers. During the 1990s, Holland formed his third quartet in addition to releasing four quintet albums on ECM. Holland also revisited a number of historic collaborations—including the Gateway Trio, and working with Herbie Hancock. His desire to focus on his compositional and arranging skills led to the formation of the Dave Holland Big Band. a group that that led to his notching two Grammy awards for Best Large Jazz Ensemble. category. In 2003, Holland departed ECM and formed his own label, Dare2 Records, on which he has issued almost all of his recent recordings. In 2009, Holland was a co-founder of an all-star group called the Overtone Quartet. The National Endowment for the Arts named Holland as one of its five Jazz Masters Fellows in 2017.

Saariaho received many major awards throughout her career, including the Grawemeyer Award and the Polar Music Prize. She left behind a significant legacy in contemporary classical music as a path-breaking and influential composer, driven by her constant desire to unite the scientific with the poetic, creating deeply felt, multi-sensory experiences Saariaho died in Paris on June 2, 2023, at the age of 70, from an aggressive form of brain cancer.

KAIJA ANNELI SAARIAHO

Kaija Anneli Saariaho (4 October 1952 – 2 June 2023) She played violin, guitar and piano growing up, and received her primary and secondary education at a Steiner school.  In university she studied first splitting her time between studying graphic design at the Aalto University School of Arts, piano at the Helsinki Conservatorium and musicology at the University of Helsinki. She later studied composition at the Sibelius Academy. She moved to Germany to study at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg under Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber. Her research at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) marked a turning point in her music away from strict serialism towards spectralism. Her characteristically rich, polyphonic textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. and computer-assisted composition, which defined her signature style. Her work in the 1980s and 1990s was marked by an emphasis on timbre and the use of electronics alongside traditional instruments Nymphéa (Jardin secret III) (1987), for example, is for string quartet and live electronics and contains an additional vocal element: the musicians whisper the words of an Arseny Tarkovsky poem. Another example is Six Japanese Gardens (1994), a percussion piece accompanied by a prerecorded electronic layer of the Japanese nature, traditional instruments, and chanting of Buddhist monks. 1990-1991. Her music is known for its lush, complex, and often mysterious textures. After her breakthrough piece Lichtbogen for ensemble and electronics in 1986, Saariaho gradually expanded her musical expression to a great variety of genres, and her chamber pieces and choral music have become staples of instru­mental and vocal ensembles, respectively. Saariaho’s broadest public and critical recognition came from her work in the field of opera. Her final opera, Innocence (2021) dealing with the aftermath of a school shooting, premiered to critical acclaim was termed Saariaho’s ‘masterpiece’ by The New York Times. Other notable works include orchestral pieces like Orion and Circle Map, and concertos such as Graal Théâtre for violin. Her final work, a trumpet concerto titled Hush, premiered posthumously.