Guy Strazz
guitarist / composer
Guy was borrn in a musical family and took up the guitar at age 11. At seventeen he moved to London where he played in his brother's band and studied jazz guitar with George Adie from the Royal Academy of Music. After trvelling to Australia for a holiday Guy established new roots in Sydney where he attended the NSW Conservatorium of Music. He then joined the jazz group Intersection, led by his teacher and pianist Roger Frampton, to undertake a four-week tour of India. This included performances at Jazz Yatra Festival in New Delhi and Mumbai where Guy also had the opportunity to hear and see Woody Shaw, Don Cherry, Henry Threadgill, Ravi Shankar and many others. The whole experience proved to be an intercultural musical epiphany for Guy, one that formed a significant and lasting influence on his approach to composition and improvisation.
Education
Scholarship holder PhD Music Macquarie University
MA (Hons) by research University Western Sydney.
B.Mus composition AIM with Brian Chat Po Ku (Hong Kong)
Diploma Jazz Studies NSW Conservatorium of Music
Classical guitar with John Della Torre and Greg Pickler
Indian classical music with Pt. Ashok Roy
Jazz guitar with George Adie, Pat Martino and Mike Stern
Studies in chromaticism Charlie Banacos (Boston)
Guy is a guest lecturer at several universities in Australia. Teaching & Education.
Miscellaneous
2001-03 Australia Council Music Fellowship. Recipient of APRA Nominations in 1999 and 2004 and a Jazz APRA in 2000. He is also the recipient of several OzCo grants. Organiser and artistic director of the UNICEF Rwanda Children Appeal Jazz Concert at the Harbourside Brasserie - Sydney 1994.
Participant at East Timor and Sumatra Fires World Music Appeals, Inter-cultural music consultant to the Australia Council for the Arts and Carnivale Arts Festival.
Tours
Guy has toured South East Asia, India, South Africa, Europe and Australasia; performing at such festivals as Jazz Yatra, Melbourne Jazz Festival, Jakarta International Jazz Festival, Johannesburg Film Festival, Adelaide Arts Festival, Aout Jazz, Sydney Opera House, Clusone Jazz Festival in Italy, Japan Expo, Wangaratta Jazz Festival, Olympic Jazz Festival Sydney and the Adelaide International Guitar Festival. electro-acoustic classical
Collaborations
These include: Roger Frampton , Don Burrows, Vince Jones, Bruce Cale, Dale Barlow, David Jones, Steve Hunter, Sandy Evans, Slava Grigoryan, Riley Lee, Andrew Gander and Matt McMahon (Aus); Mark Atkins and Matthew Doyle (Aus Aborigenies); Furio DiCastri & Francesco D'Auria (Italy); Martin Taylor and Ike Isaacs (UK). Ernie Watts, Don Rader, Daryl Pratt and MikeStern (US); Rodrigo Galvao (Brazil); Iwayan Balawan, Dwiki Darmawan & Ade Rudiana (Indonesia); Valanga Khosa (West Africa). Pt Ashok Roy, Sandip Chatterjee, Adrian McNeil, Bobby Singh and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (India) amongst many others.
Current bands
2@1 and Guy Strazz World Jazz Quartet