Sue Rynhart & Huw Warren

About this event

The Sofa Sessions presents Sue Rynhart & Huw Warren

Sue Rynhart - voice
Huw Warren - Fender Rhodes electric piano

The Sofa Sessions is delighted to announce the return of critically acclaimed Dublin singer and composer Sue Rynhart. Anyone who was at Sue's last performance at the Sofa Sessions will know this is a concert not to be missed. Add Huw Warren, one of the most sought after pianists on the London scene, who is a long-standing collaborator of the legendary English folk singer June Tabor and who has recorded for the ECM label, and you have what could be one of the concerts of the year...

"Sue Rynhart’s poetic creativity seemingly knows no bounds ... an absolute joy to be present."

London Jazz News

“Songs that sound at once ancient and modern, with echoes of folk and early music, contemporary jazz and the avant garde, recalling Theo Bleckmann, Bjork and a hint of Joni Mitchell.”

The Irish Times about Sue Rynhart's 2017 album Signals

"Tabor’s dark tones find the perfect foil in the the delicate precision of Welsh pianist Huw Warren’s accompaniments"

The Irish Times about Quercus (ECM)

About Sue Rynhart

Vocalist and composer Sue Rynhart BA (Mus) MA Mus (Hist) ARIAM. Sue's debut album 'Crossings' (Songs for Voice & Double Bass) with Dan Bodwell was nominated 'Best Jazz Album' in the Irish Times Ticket Awards 2014. and her new album 'Signals' is receiving International critical acclaim from publications and radio including; The Irish Times, American website 'All About Jazz', Folk Radio UK, Scandinavian Jazz Review 'Salt Peanuts', RTÉ and BBC. In performing with Dylan Rynhart's Fuzzy Logic Ensemble, she has sung with international Jazz artists, Rick Peckham, Tom Arthurs and Florian Ross. She has premiered works by many of the Composers from the Irish Composers Collective & the Contemporary Music Centre and and has performed on BBC Radio with the Choir of Christchurch Cathedral Dublin. She has been featured extensively on Róisín Ingle's Irish Times podcast 'Róisín meets', The Blue of the Night RTÉ Lyric fm and on Bernard Clarke's award winning radio programme 'Nova' on RTÉ Lyric fm. Sue has performed her music at many festivals such as the Manchester Jazz Festival, Electric Picnic, Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, Drogheda Arts Festival, Bray Jazz Festival, Waterford New Music Week, Liverpool Irish Festival at the Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room, Liverpool Three Festival Tall Ships Regatta, Jazzy Colors Festival Paris and in the Main auditorium in the National Concert Hall Dublin for the Perspectives Jazz festival as a support act for the late ECM Trumpeter Tomasz Stanko.

About Huw Warren

Welsh pianist and composer Huw Warren has achieved an international reputation for innovative and eclectic music making over a thirty year career. Equally at home crossing the often exclusive worlds of Jazz, World and Contemporary music; he has a distinctive and personal voice, and has collaborated with a huge variety of artists worldwide

Huw has recorded 2 albums for ECM (as Quercus with June Tabor and Iain Ballamy) and in 2018 released a solo piano recording Nocturnes and Visions. In 2019 he will release 2 albums for CAM Jazz Everything in Between (with Dudley Phillips and Zoot Warren) and New Day (with Mark Lockheart) His previous albums and projects have included themes and source material as diverse as John Dowland, Welsh Hymns, Plainchant and Hermeto Pascoal.

His writing style combines quirky rhythmic grooves with simple melodic beauty; and manages to be both complex and approachable.

His best known projects include Dialektos (duo with Italian singer Maria Pia de Vito) Hermeto+ (A reworking of the music of Hermeto Pascoal with drummer Martin France and bassist Peter Herbert) 100s of Things a Boy Can Make (with NY violinist Mark Feldman) Infinite Riches in a Little Room (a solo piano set centred around a beautiful reworking of a melody by John Dowland) Perfect Houseplants (Huw Warren, Mark Lockheart, Dudley Phillips, Martin France), A Barrel organ Far From Home (a nine piece mixed line up with strings and penny whistle) and a long standing collaboration with singer June Tabor. He has also performed and collaborated with a wide array of musicians including Mark Feldman, Peter Herbert, Joanna Macgreggor, Iain Ballamy, Kenny Wheeler, Jim Black, Theo Bleckmann , Neil Yates, Lleuwen Steffan,Pamela Thorby, Mose Se Fan Fan, Mat Maneri and Thomas Strønen .

Awarded the BBC Jazz award for Innovation, and the ACW Creative Wales Award, he has also written for many ensembles including Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Welsh Chamber Orchestra, RSC, LPO Renga ensemble, National Youth Brass Band of Wales, The Orlando Consort, Ensmble Plus, Koch Ensemble and Tango Siempre. Recently he has further broadened his collaborative pool to work with spoken word artists, visual artists, filmmakers, choreographers and photographers.

Currently a jazz lecturer/tutor at RWCMD,Cardiff, Huw is also head of Jazz Ensembles at Cardiff University.