Amy Crawford October 10, 2007

Vocalist Amy Crawford spent the first ten years of her jazz studies as a piano student of Tee Carson and Ross Tompkins, on scholarship at the Monterey Jazz Festival's education program in California. At age 18 she successfully auditioned for and toured with Monterey's Honor Band, which lead to international performances at the Montreux, Umbria and Vienne jazz festivals. After moving to the East Coast to attend Wesleyan University in 2002, Amy began performing as a vocalist/pianist. Since then, she has studied with musicians including Dena DeRose, Giacomo Gates, Peter Eldridge, Gloria Cooper, Jay Hoggard and Taylor Ho Bynum. She also delved into contemporary improvisation and new music as a pianist and composer, forming a close mentorship with MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Anthony Braxton. Since 2005, she has established and performed with several projects in and around New York City -- ranging from creative duos to small ensembles to multidisciplinary works -- which honor her heroes of the jazz idiom and continue to move the music forward. "Over the past 20 years, I have gone to dozens of concerts on the Wesleyan University campus featuring students playing alongside their teachers and mentors. Many of these student-musicians have gone on to successful careers.... Tierney Sutton and Amy Crawford are both making their ways through the (all-of-sudden) crowded field of jazz vocalists.... The California native [Crawford] is another product of the fertile Arts program at Wesleyan University and is just beginning to be noticed by critics and audiences on the East Coast." --Richard Kamins, Hartford Courant

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