UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra presents a new concert series Great Voices dedicated to stellar vocalists! The premiere in October 2020 brings the Israeli jazz singer and composer Efrat Alony to perform in Finland for the very first time. For special program “New Jewish Folk Songs” Efrat Alony has chosen her favorite Israeli standards composed between the 1920s up to contemporary Israeli music, to be masterfully arranged and reshaped by UMO Helsinki’s chief conductor and artistic director, American-Austrian Ed Partyka.

The arrangements for the concerts are exceptional: tickets are sold for only 200 people, and the audience is seated in the Savoy’s auditorium for 750 people with fair safety intervals. There are only single,  double and quartet ticket packages on sale, which can be purchased only at Lippu.fi online store. The seats are positioned so that the audience does not come into close contact with each other or the performers. Duration about 75 minutes, no intermission. Audience safety at concerts >>

Alony, who now lives in Berlin, has fascinated the European press for many years. She has been crowned “one of the most important voices in the German jazz scene”. Her music has been called “popular art songs, highly expressive”, others speak of “pop songs that mysteriously come out of jazz” or “a chamber-jazz parallel world”. Trying to put Alony’s music in a box is a task destined to fail. Every musical compartment would simply be too small. Her ability to compose and sing in between the musical genres – both in Hebrew and English – in her exceptional unique style is what makes her stand out and shine.

Partyka’s orchestral finesse and the wide ranged temperament of the songs presented provide the perfect canvas for Alony’s strong, soulful and deep voice, with its marvelous shape-shifting abilities, to slip in and out of different characters and emotions.

”The style isn’t quite jazz but something new and cutting edge, sort of an atonal folk-electronica mash. While I confess you may need to recalibrate your sensibility a bit to fully appreciate what Alony is doing, the journey is well worth it. If you appreciate avant-garde music, her sound grows on you fast.” Jazzwax.com, Marc Meyers

“She is a musician of a unique refinement. She loves the melting of sound-elements rooted in jazz, rock and electronic music, and using her poetic lyrics and her warm dark alto voice she turns it into a very individual and personal statement.” Bavarian Radio

”I’m not sure that there is a category for what Alony does. I’m not sure that there should be. Call it music.”Artsjournal, Doug Ramsey

”The style isn’t quite jazz but something new and cutting edge, sort of an atonal folk-electronica mash. While I confess you may need to recalibrate your sensibility a bit to fully appreciate what Alony is doing, the journey is well worth it. If you appreciate avant-garde music, her sound grows on you fast.” Jazzwax.com, Marc Meyers

Great Voices concerts in autumn season 2020:

Great Voices Premiere: Efrat Alony (IL) feat. UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra: New Jewish Folk Songs // 24.10.2020

Great Voices #1: China Moses (US) feat. UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra // 5.11.2020

Great Voices #2: Ola Onabulé (UK/NGR) feat. UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra // 12.12.2020