Primary Scene: Brooklyn/New York
Brooklyn, NY (USA) based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocalist’s role in jazz and improvised music. Victor encompasses a distinctive vocalizing, language and performing approach with the foundation of the jazz vocal idiom, now encompassing an “everything is everything” aesthetic bringing in references that span the globe. Victor sees the vocal instrument in itself as full of possibilities of sound exploration, the voice a direct and powerful conduit for language and messages in an improvising context. All of these ideas aim to push the vocal envelope to forge greater expressive possibilities. In Victor’s 10 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the through line of expansive expression leading up to Victor’s most recent release, BARN SONGS (Northern Spy Records) with her Chamber Trio featuring Darius Jones (alto saxophone) & Marika Hughes (cello) that was released in November 2019.
Victor’s work has been featured in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone Magazine, TimeOut New York & The Huffington Post; has worked with luminaries such as William Parker, Roswell Rudd, Nicole Mitchell, Archie Shepp, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few; highlights of her performances include The Whitney Museum & The Museum of Modern Art (NYC), The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), De Young Museum (SF), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), The Winter Jazz Festival (NY) and the Bimhuis (Netherlands). Victor was the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition and a 2018 recipient of a month-long Headlands Center for the Arts residency. Victor is currently on the Faculty at the New School of Jazz & Contemporary Music and gives master classes, workshops and clinics on Creative Improvisation, Songwriting for Improvisors; Lectures and talks on subjects such as Confidence Building, My Cultural Lens and Experiments in Communicating Message as well as private lessons for the serious vocal student and improvisor.
Victor, Fay