James Ryan - Saxophonist James Ryan was born and educated in Darwin, capital of Australia’s Northern Territory. In 1995 James graduated from the Canberra School of Music A.N.U. with a Masters of Music majoring in Jazz, the first granted by an Australian University. He proceeded to teach performance, improvisation and composition at the Canberra School of Music (A.N.U.), The Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Griffith University) and the Queensland University of Technology. In 1999 James went to London for four years to further his great passion and from there he performed extensively throughout Europe and India. In 2003 James relocated to Sydney. The impact of his compositions, his superlative technique and wonderful improvisations that are rich in ideas, places James at the forefront of his contemporaries. What really leaps out of James’s music is his near virtuosity as a player of his three instruments of choice: tenor sax, flute and saxello (a more mellow soprano sax). James currently leads the James Ryan Trio, The Subterraneans, and performs in a duet with Australian Jazz piano legend Chuck Yates. He is also a member of the Ron Philpott Band and the Bobby Gebert Quintet. James already has a number of albums to his credit with the promise of more to come. James has teamed with Mike Foley’s Jazzamatazz for the “Dream Tour” to New York City and will definitely leave his mark on Big Apple audiences. 

She’s a tall, raw, colonial girl, trained to act, educated in theatre yet her gift for character is so innate it needs no props and barely a skerrick of costuming. You won’t find her in conventional locales. Vashti Hughes is part of a growing band of theatre makers who take what they can get. Cars, pubs, streets, houses — all of these provide a stage.

Most recently Vashti has used the minuscule Piccolo Bar for Piccolo Tales, featuring the legendary Vittorio, octogenarian Sicilian at least one foot shorter and 30 years older. The characters are so vital and prolific, from the black box or the more ambiguous darkness of club and bar owners and political figures. Satirical, clever, witty, and charasmatic, Vashti Hughes comes back to The Cross as the one and only Abe Safron Saturday June 17th 2017 at The bank Hotel in B.E.D.

Credit Fiona Mcgregor THE SATURDAY PAPER