At the age of just twenty-one, North-Devon born saxophonist Emma Rawicz has already made her mark as one of the most exciting names on the British jazz scene after headlining Ronnie Scott’s, receiving a Jazz FM Awards nomination, winning the award for ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at the 2022 Parliamentary Jazz Awards and making it to the final of BBC Young Jazz Musician in the same year. Rawicz has announced today the release of the second single ‘Middle Ground’ from her hugely-anticipated debut album Chroma, which will be released via ACT Music on August 25th 2023.
The album title "Chroma" (the Greek word for colour or paint) is significant as Rawicz is a synesthete and involuntarily and simultaneously experiences music through a second sensory pathway, colour. “I can’t do anything else while listening to music because there is always a sensory overload going on as I Iisten,” she says. All of the tracks, with one exception, are named after relatively little-known colours.
The band features some of the UK’s most in demand players including drummer/percussionist Asaf Sirkis, pianist Ivo Neame, guitarist Ant Law and bassist Conor Chaplin. Emma also invited her friend from the same student cohort, vocalist Immy Churchill, a fellow rising star who she describes as having “an incredibly wide range of influences from a whole range of songwriters. She has the knowledge and the open mind to walk into any musical situation without knowledge of the context and bring her own voice to it.”
Rawicz will launch Chroma at the Jazz Café in London on September 1st and will perform at the EFG London Jazz Festival at Cadogan Hall in support of Avishai Cohen on November 14th.
01 Phlox
02 Xanadu I
03 Rangwali
04 Xanadu II
05 Middle Ground
06 Xanadu III
07 Viridian
08 Falu
Music composed, arranged and produced by Emma Rawicz.
