EVANS/ROBSON QUARTET: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE [2025 CONCERT SERIES] // Springwood Presbyterian Church Hall, Springwood.

Experience an exhilarating night of contemporary jazz led by two of Australia’s most acclaimed saxophonists and composers, Sandy Evans and Andrew Robson. Evans’ powerful tenor sound and soaring soprano melodies, combined with Robson’s effortless sense of groove and an uncanny instinct for melodic lyricism, create a beautiful and engaging musical dialogue. As The Sydney Morning Herald notes, “Evans has been among the country’s preeminent tenor and soprano players for 40 years, while Robson has been a scalding and imaginative alto player for a decade less.” Backed by a powerhouse rhythm section, Brett Hirst on bass and Hamish Stuart on drums, this Live at the Village promises not to disappoint!

EVANS/ROBSON QUARTET: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE [2025 CONCERT SERIES] // Saturday 9 August 2025 // Doors 7:30 pm; Show 8:00 pm // Tickets: $35 or $28 Concession

Location: Springwood Presbyterian Church Hall. 160 Macquarie Rd, Springwood NSW.

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/ EVANS/ROBSON QUARTET /

Sandy Evans – Tenor and soprano saxophone
Andrew Robson – Alto and baritone saxophone, recorder
Brett Hirst – Double bass
Hamish Stuart – drums

This collaboration features renowned saxophonists Sandy Evans and Andrew Robson in a dynamic ensemble rich with energy, passion, groove, spontaneity, and imagination. The sensational bass player Brett Hirst and brilliant drummer Hamish Stuart are completing the stellar line-up. Evans and Robson have worked on several projects since the early 1990s, including Ten Part Invention, the Mara! Big Band and Robson’s Thomas Tallis Project, but for the first time, the Evans/Robson Quartet sees them join forces to co-lead a small group. Their first album, Zenith, will be released in June 2025. The project features compositions by Evans and Robson that explore a wide range of contemporary jazz, improvised music, and intercultural connections. Evans’ powerful tenor sound and soaring soprano melodies combined with Robson’s great sense of groove and an uncanny instinct for melodic lyricism to create a beautiful and engaging musical dialogue. One of Australia’s most accomplished rhythm sections generates a joyous improvised space that can be deep, driving, fun-filled, or tender.

/ SANDY EVANS /
Dr Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned composer and saxophonist passionate about improvisation and new music. She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s, toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia, and been featured on over 40 albums. She leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet and co-leads Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. She is a member of Mara!, The Catholics, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), Ten Part Invention, austraLYSIS, Friends of Kim Sanders, Atma Blu, Waratah, Andrew Robson’s Tallis project, Ben Walsh’s Orkestra of the Underground and SNAP. She has performed with many leading jazz musicians, including Andrea Keller, Paul Grabowsky, Silke Eberhard, Ingrid Jensen, Judy Bailey, Han Bennink and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2018, Sandy toured Germany and Sweden. She was a featured soloist in Lloyd Swanton’s widely acclaimed Ambon project.

Sandy has an extensive composition portfolio has received many commissions from leading jazz, improvising and new music ensembles. Recent commissions include a suite in honour of legendary Australian saxophonist the late Bernie McGann and a CD RockPoolMirror based on photographs by Tall Poppies’ Belinda Webster. Wesleyan University Press released Sandy’s composition Testimony, a significant work about the life and music of Charlie Parker with poetry by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Yusef Komunyakaa, in the US in 2013. Sandy composed Kali and The Time of Change, the title track of The Sirens debut CD.

Sandy has a keen interest in Indian classical music. She collaborates regularly with Sydney-based Indian musicians Sarangan Sriranganathan and Bobby Singh and recently released the CD Kapture, a tribute to South African freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada. ‘…a masterfully performed fusion of jazz and Indian classical musics… the improvisations exemplify the virtuosic energy that is a key resonance between jazz and Indian classical music.’ Cummins 2015 www.musictrust.com.au

... CD Cosmic Waves, featuring South Indian mridangam virtuoso Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani and Sruthi Laya, is released in India on Underscore Records. In 2014, Sandy was awarded a PhD from Macquarie University for practice-based research in Carnatic Jazz Intercultural music. She began collaborating with Aneesh Pradhan and Shubha Mudgal during a Churchill Fellowship visit to India.

Sandy is an experienced teacher and inaugurated a Jazz Improvisation Course for Young Women run annually by SIMA. She is a Lecturer in Jazz at UNSW and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Composition and Jazz Units at the Sydney Conservatorium. She appears in the Australian jazz documentaries Beyond el Rocco and Dr Jazz.

“…this saxophonist surely ranks as one of the best contemporary jazz composers/musicians anywhere.”
Ian Patterson, allaboutjazz.com.


/ ANDREW ROBSON /
Saxophonist, composer, researcher and educator Andrew Robson is one of Australia's premier jazz musicians. A two-time ARIA award winner and a recipient of the Freedman Jazz Fellowship, Andrew performs nationally and internationally with groups including the Paul Grabowsky Sextet (winner of the 2014 ARIA award), Mike Nock's Big Small Band, Ten Part Invention, the World According to James, and his own groups.

Andrew has toured widely with numerous ensembles and has performed at many of the world's foremost jazz, world and folk music festivals, including Chicago, Berlin, London and other major festivals and venues throughout Europe, Asia, Canada and the United States. Andrew has also released a series of critically acclaimed albums as a leader, including Bering the Bell (2008), Songbook (2013), and The Child Ballads (2016).

Andrew grew up in Canberra, and before his move to Sydney in 1992, he travelled to New York, where he studied with some of the world's most celebrated saxophonists, including David Liebman and Steve Coleman. From 1993 to 1997, Robson featured as a member of the Grandmasters, a groove band led by the legendary Jackie Orszaczky. With Jackie, he twice toured Europe, performing at concerts and festivals in Hungary, Austria, Germany and Holland. Andrew Robson plays on three of Jackie's CD releases: Family Lore, 100%, and Deep Down and Out. In 1997 Robson joined the internationally acclaimed folk/world music group MARA with whom he has performed extensively throughout the UK, Europe, Asia and Canada.

In addition to his reputation as one of Australia's leading jazz soloists and composers, Andrew's broad performance experience sees him equally at home in folk, world and popular music contexts. During a career spanning more than 25 years, Andrew has performed with some of Australia's most well-known and celebrated talent, including Marcia Hines, Tim Finn, You Am I, Renee Geyer, Jon Stevens, Josh Pyke, Vince Jones Ed, Kuepper, Alex Lloyd, Briggs and The Whitlams. He has also appeared with touring American artists Terry Evans, Cornell Dupree (Aretha Franklin) and Jon 'King' Cleary.

In 2016, Andrew received his PhD from the University of Sydney. His thesis focuses on his creative work as viewed through the prism of the Australian and New Zealand regional jazz scenes. Since 2017, Andrew has lectured in music at Macquarie University in Sydney.

"Robson’s triumph here is to make his music so raw and visceral that the tales become real rather than fantastical."

- John Shand.

/ BRETT HIRST /

Brett Hirst completed his Diploma of Jazz Studies at the Christchurch School of Jazz with a double major in Performance and Arranging & Composition. During his time in New Zealand, Brett was invited to perform with several American artists of international renown, such as Mark Levine, Harvey Weinapel, Gordon Brisker and Bruce Paulson. Since moving to Sydney in 1998 and completing a year of postgraduate study at the Sydney Conservatorium, Brett currently maintains a busy schedule as a member of the Sandy Evans Trio, the Vince Jones Band, the Mike Nock Trio and Big Band, Phil Slaters Very Interactive Band, the James Muller Quartet, Scott Tinklers Drub Nick McBrides Rectangle, Toaster, the Gerard Masters Trio, The Roger Manins Group, Heavy Weather, pop rock band Lior, Reuben Derrick Group and Sam Keevers Red Fish Blue.

"Brett Hirt's bass, bowed and pizz, singing a song of colours overlapping colours."
- John Hardaker on Gary Daley's Sanctuary Album.

/ HAMISH STUART /

There aren’t many styles drummer Hamish Stuart hasn’t mastered, and the list of musicians he’s played with and who are now his fans is even longer. Now, with his first ‘solo’ album ‘Someone Else’s Child’ Hamish Stuart proves he also has a gift for composition. As Australia’s much-loved and respected ‘rhythm king’, Hamish called upon an extraordinary family of world-class musicians to help out with this project, including Chris Abrahams, Dave Symes, Ben Hauptmann, the late Jackie Orszaczky, Tina Harrod and Phil Slater, among many others. A gorgeous exploration of texture and mood, ‘Someone Else’s Child’ is a testament to one of Australia’s most extraordinary and most humble musical talents.

“For all his aptitude, accomplishment and love for the instrument, Hamish Stuart is always playing the music rather than the drums. Long may I look at a concert bill and have my eyes light up when I see Hamish Stuart's name.”
– John Shand, music critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and author of Jazz - The Australian Accent.

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/ LIVE AT THE VILLAGE /
Live at the Village has been presenting music concerts in the iconic Blue Mountains since 2009. We are dedicated to presenting the best Australian contemporary composers and musicians in an eclectic range of music styles, including world, jazz, soul, folk, and all improvised music genres. Performances occur at Springwood in the lower Blue Mountains, just over an hour west of the centre of Sydney. Live at the Village members are professional musicians of national standing and music lovers.

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/ THE SCHEDULE /

Date: Saturday, 9 August 2025.
Venue: Springwood Presbyterian Church Hall. 160 Macquarie Rd, Springwood NSW.

Doors Open: 7:30 pm
First Set: 8:00-8:45 pm
Second Set: 9:15-10:00 pm

Tickets: General Admission $35 or Concessions $28

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