| Venue: After Hours upstairs @ The Martello |
| Date & Hour: , Sunday 2nd May, 12am - midnight |
The curtain will come down on Bray Jazz 2010 with a fitting local showcase for one of the most talented young musicians to emerge from the North Wicklow town in recent times.
Alex Mathias has come a long way since being taught his first chords on the guitar by his father at his home on Bray's Meath Road. First picking up the saxophone at the age of 12, he received a music scholarship a year later, and spent five years studying at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, before heading, at the age of 17 to study at the prestigious Berklee College Of Music in the United States.
Alex spent three years at Berklee studying performance, composition, arranging, and music therapy, and received tuition from heavy weight saxophonists Joe Lovano and George Garzone. While at Berklee, he was awarded the Division Achievement Award for Outstanding Musicianship.
Returning to Ireland upon graduation, Alex Mathias has made quite an impression on the Irish music scene since then. He has played both nationally and internationally with an array of different groups including The Commitments, the RTE Concert Orchestra, The Dublin City Jazz Orchestra and The Republic of Loose, amongst others.
If his dynamic young group, featuring Johnny Taylor on keyboards, Dominic Mullan on drums and James Little on bass are any barometer of the future shape of Irish jazz then the music on these shores is in rude health indeed. |
