Dr Sandy Evans OAM
Chair of JRMA, Dr Sandy Evans OAM is an internationally renowned composer and saxophonist with a passion for improvisation and new music. She has played with and written for some of the most important groups in Australian jazz since the early 1980s, toured extensively in Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia, and been featured on over 40 albums. Sandy leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, and co-led Clarion Fracture Zone and GEST8. She is a member of Mara!, The catholics, Ten Part Invention and austraLYSIS. Sandy has a keen interest in Indian classical music and collaborates with Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani, Sarangan Sriranganathan and Bobby Singh. She has performed with many leading jazz musicians including Andrea Keller, Paul Grabowsky, Silke Eberhard, Ingrid Jensen, Judy Bailey, Han Bennink and Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2019 Sandy was inducted into the Australian Jazz Bell Awards Hall of Fame. Sandy is an experienced teacher and inaugurated a Jazz Improvisation Course for Young Women run annually by SIMA. Sandy is a Lecturer in Music at UNSW.
Dr Liz Bowen
Administrator, Liz Bowen has worked in the Not-for profit sector for over more than twenty years. She has worked as a Communications Manager, Editor of a monthly community magazine as well as supporting various ensembles and artists, Ten Part Invention being one large ensemble and trombonist, James Greening one artist. She also volunteers at the Varuna Writer’s House in Katoomba.
The Mietta Foundation
The Mietta Foundation was established to perpetuate the work and memory of Mietta O’Donnell and to celebrate her life by enhancing the spirit and energy of cultural life in this country. In addition to supporting the Mietta Song Competition the Mietta Foundation established a series of forums and conversations about food, books, the arts and social engagement issues including diplomacy, culture, economics and the environment. It now supports a range of arts and cultural activities and organisations.
SIMA
SIMA is a non-profit contemporary jazz organisation dedicated to facilitating performance, education and new work creation for Australian jazz since 1984. SIMA has continuously supported JRMA, including hosting the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival annually where our JRMA Award recipient is billed to perform and often when a formal presentation is made to the winner.
Joan Spiller
Joan Spiller – CSC Australia Board
Joan Spiller has decades of experience at Board level in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Her Board Directorships have included the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Victorian Rehabilitation Centre, Monash IVF, Monash Ultrasound, Monash Reproductive Pathology and Genetics, Commonwealth Study Conference – Australia, and Flower & Samios Architects (Chair).
In the arts sector, she chaired the Australian Art Orchestra for ten years, and is Secretary/Treasurer of the Mietta Foundation, and Deputy Chair of West Space Gallery. She has been a Member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Board and a Trustee of the Melbourne Symphony Foundation.
MWIJF
The Melbourne Women's International Jazz Festival is a festival which encourages and supports women as jazz musicians, and composers.
JRMA gratefully acknowledges the support of the founding administrator Jane March without whom the Award could not have happened.