Blair Latham and his group ‘Fire Waltz’ have been selected for the 2024 SOUNZ Jazz Recording Project | Ngā Hopuranga Puoro Tautito a SOUNZ.
The SOUNZ Jazz Recording Project | Ngā Hopuranga Puoro Tautito a SOUNZ aims to create high-quality recordings (audio and video) of original jazz compositions by New Zealand jazz composers.
“We have an incredibly talented cohort of jazz composer-performers in Aotearoa, as proven by the growing list of musicians who’ve been selected for the SOUNZ Jazz Recording Project over the past eight years. Blair Latham is a humble and quietly hard-working musician of an exceptional standard, whose talents would be championed anywhere in the world. I’m thrilled to hear that his ensemble and compositions will feature in our 2024 recording session, and look forward to hearing the results!” said SOUNZ’s Chief Executive Hannah Darroch.
Latham said, "Thank you to SOUNZ for this wonderful opportunity to capture in sound and sight this set of new compositions with our ensemble Fire Waltz. It’s hugely validating for myself and the group to be given this chance to culminate the creative process and all the effort that is involved with that with this funded recording. I’m looking forward to letting these talented musicians loose on these fun and diverse tunes, and I hope that people will enjoy the end result. I think that to have an organisation like SOUNZ out there in our corner helping artists to create and promote art is an amazing positive for the NZ music scene.”
The recordings will be made in December at the Massey University recording studios in Wellington. Following the final editing process, the recordings will be made available for streaming and promotion on the SOUNZ website and embedding on the composer’s website.
