2024 Young Women’s Workshop
In collaboration with the Brisbane International Jazz Festival (BIJF), Talkin’ Jazz is excited to present a Workshop for young women with an interest in jazz music. This workshop is for high-school aged students identifying as female or non-binary. Previous experience in jazz is not required although it is recommended that students possess enough technical fluency on their instrument to be able to take part in the activities.
We are excited to invite Martha Baartz back as our mentor for the 2024 Workshop! Martha will be assisted by Talkin' Jazz staff Cassie Whitehead and Kayleigh Pincott.
Dates, times and cost:
Sunday 3rd November 9am–11am at the Brisbane Jazz Club
The cost is $20.00 payable via the BJC website before the Workshop date.
Please note, no food will be provided
*Optional* The Unladylike Big Band, Brisbane's first all-female Big Band, will be conducting an 'open rehearsal' after the Workshop. Participants are welcome to watch the rehearsal at no extra cost and can observe how professional ensembles rehearse and even hear a sneak peak of the band's new repertoire!
What to expect: The Young Women’s Workshop will provide an incredible opportunity for participants to meet and play music with other young women in jazz. Participants should expect to have fun, be challenged in a supportive environment, and to pick up a bunch of new skills to improve their playing of jazz and improvised music!
You will need to bring your instrument – the Brisbane Jazz Club provides a backline of piano, drum kit with cymbals, guitar amp, bass amp and microphones.
FOR PARENTS: While we appreciate the support and interest of parents, the Young Women’s Workshop space is exclusively for participants.
Please note, we will be capturing photos and video of the Workshop for promotional purposes. Please let us know if your daughter wishes not to be photographed.
Martha Baartz (saxophonist/composer) has performed extensively Nationally and Internationally including Glastonbury Festival (UK), The Edinburgh Festival, The Melbourne Festival, and The Brisbane International Jazz Festival and has a Master in music performance (award of Academic Excellence 2010) from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.
Martha is well known for her compositions performed in “The Baartz Freeman sextet”, “Baartzy’s Brew” “The Denson Baartz Quartet” and “Parrott Baartz Project”. She has recorded four successful albums of original music and her compositions are often played on Radio National, Jazz Track. Martha currently teaches saxophone at Southern Cross University (SCU) and Lindisfarne Grammar School.
She has performed with Australian greats; Dan Sultan, Renee Geyer, Jimmy Barnes and Ian Moss (Motown show), Ray Beadle, Clayton Doley, Lachy Doley, Sandy Evans, Bob Sedergreen (2008 Don Banks award winner) Andrea Keller (Aria winner) and Michelle Nicole (Wangaratta Jazz vocal award winner), and international superstars “The Funk Brothers”, “The Temptations” and “Martha and the Vandala’s”. She is a 1st call session and freelance artist having recorded with Australian premier R&B/Soul band “The Teskey Brothers” and Nicki Parrott for Japanese jazz label, “Venus Records” amongst others.
“World class performance” (Waldek Sibinski, Australian Jazz Museum)
“A creative, innovative sound…hooks the listener.4/5” (Chris Copas, The Star)
"From hard-driving funk to evocative ballad, from blues to Latin to tango ... fastidious and edgy but playful and fun too ... full of emotion ... “
(Leon Gettler, The Age 'Green Guide')
Unladylike Big Band
The 17-piece Unladylike Big Band perform compositions and arrangements by women throughout history and contemporary composers including Australia’s very own Gemma Farrell, Louise Denson, Judy Bailey and members of the band itself. This is a collaboration of some of Australia’s finest musicians such as Martha Baartz, Peta Leigh Wilson, Helen Russell, Kayleigh Pincott, Ange Santamaria, Grace Mary King, Sharon Elaine, Cassie Whitehead and Bec Olek, so you won’t want to miss this special show.
The Unladylike Big Band showcases, encourages and empowers women in the jazz community. While less than a quarter of all professional jazz musicians worldwide are female, Queensland’s only professional big band comprised entirely of women and led by women bridges this gender representation gap. The band exists as a platform for the historically ‘unladylike’ act of performing jazz music on instruments that may have stereotypically been thought of as masculine.
Women can play jazz and their voices are valid and important but without other women to look up to, many young women are opting out of music careers before giving it a chance. While there are many grievances surrounding the lack of women represented in jazz, we cannot ignore those who are already there. The Unladylike Big Band instead chooses to celebrate and recognize those women who have paved the way for the generations to come.
