Old Country, New Country with Sandy Evans (Syd) + JRMA winner – Lauren Tsamouras (Syd)

Opening Support Set – Monash Emerging Artist

Headline Artists

Set 1 – Lauren Tsamouras

Jann Rutherford Memorial Award Winner: Lauren Tsamouras

Lauren Tsamouras – piano and compositions
Harry Birch – double bass

Another Green World, led by pianist Lauren Tsamouras with Harry Birch on double bass, delivers an intimate and meditative experience through exploration of pulsatile and improvisation-led compositions.

Lauren Tsamouras is a pianist, composer, and improviser based in Warrang/Sydney. Completing a Bachelor degree in Jazz Piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2020, she studied under acclaimed Australian jazz musicians including Judy Bailey, Kevin Hunt, Carl Dewhurst, Matt McMahon, Steve Barry, and Emma Stephenson. Since then, she has become an integral part of Sydney’s vibrant jazz and improvised music scene.

She leads and composes for her contemporary jazz duo Another Green World, whose debut album Mytera was released in March 2023. In addition to her own projects, Lauren performs regularly with ensembles such as Pharos (a big band celebrating women in jazz led by Hannah James), Volant (led by Matt Ottignon), and Home Is (led by Hinano Fujisaki). She has also worked with renowned double bassist and improviser Clayton Thomas in their trio LUSH (piano, double bass, vibraphone) alongside Niki Johnson, and in Sound The Alarm, a project raising funds and awareness for humanitarian causes in Gaza.

In 2025, Lauren recorded a tribute album to composer and pianist Judy Bailey with trumpeter Tom Avgenicos, reimagining Bailey’s works for piano and trumpet + FX. The album will be released on ABC Jazz later this year.

Lauren was nominated for the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award in 2021 and became its recipient in 2025, supporting the recording of Another Green World’s forthcoming second album. She was also featured as an ABC Jazz Artist in Residence in early 2025, and in October will appear as SIMA’s October Artist in Residence at The Vanguard, alongside Hilary Geddes, Brendan Clark, Jacques Emery, and Ashley Stoneham.

@laurentsamouras
@anothergreenworld_band

Set 2 – Old Country, New Country + Sandy Evans

Co-presented with the Melbourne Jazz Co-op

Sandy Evans – saxophones
Peggy Lee – cello
Paul Williamson – trumpet
Dylan van der Schyff – drums

Old Country, New Country is the collaborative ensemble of Peggy Lee (cello), Paul Williamson (trumpet), and Dylan van der Schyff (drums). The group explores the intersections of composition, free improvisation, and experimental music through diverse formal concepts and extended instrumental techniques.

Following their self-titled 2024 recording, this performance features a new iteration of the ensemble in collaboration with internationally renowned saxophonist and composer Sandy Evans. Together they will premiere new works that will feature on a forthcoming recording to be released in 2026.

sandyevans.com.au
YouTube: @sandyevansmusic
Instagram: @sandyevansmusic
Peggy Lee Bandcamp
Dylan van der Schyff Bandcamp
Paul Williamson Bandcamp

Dr Sandy Evans OAM

Sandy Evans is an internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer with a deep passion for improvisation and new music. Since the early 1980s, she has played with and written for many of Australia’s most important jazz ensembles and has toured extensively across Australia, Europe, Canada, and Asia.

She leads the Sandy Evans Trio and Sextet, co-leads the Evans/Robson Quartet, Shakti Spirit, and Magic Music, and has been a core member of Mara!, The catholics, Ten Part Invention, and austraLYSIS. Her pioneering group Women and Children First undertook an epic seven-month national tour during the 1980s. Sandy has collaborated with an extensive roster of local and international artists including Andrea Keller, Freyja Garbett, Satsuki Odamura, Paul Grabowsky, Terri Lyne Carrington, and the Australian Art Orchestra.

Her keen interest in Indian classical music has led to collaborations with Nadamhuni Gayatri Bharat in Shakti Spirit and the release of Cosmic Waves with mridangam virtuoso Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani. She was awarded a PhD in 2014 from Macquarie University for her research in Carnatic Jazz Intercultural Music.

Sandy’s project Bridge of Dreams—a collaboration with Shubha Mudgal, Aneesh Pradhan, and the Sirens Big Band—was a highlight of the 2019 Sydney Festival. Her compositions include Rockpool Mirror, Sky, Let the Rain Fall, and Testimony (published by Wesleyan University Press, with poetry by Yusef Komunyakaa).

Sandy is also a dedicated educator, having taught at UNSW, Macquarie University, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is a passionate advocate for gender diversity in jazz, founding the Jazz Improvisation Course for Young Women and serving as the founding director of the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award.

Awards and Honours

• Australian Jazz Bell Awards Hall of Fame (2019)
• Art Music Award for Excellence in Jazz (2018)
• Australia Council Fellowship (2017–2018)
• Churchill Fellowship (2014)
• Order of Australia Medal (2010)
• Bell Award – Australian Jazz Musician of the Year (2003)
• 3× ARIA Awards, APRA Award, 2× Mo Awards