MP3 Tanya Evanson - Invisible World

Word and song in a rich context of African, Latin American, Arabic, Jazz and Hip Hop traditions - spoken world music.

16 MP3 Songs
WORLD: World Traditions, SPOKEN WORD: With Music



Details:
Tanya Evanson is a 33-year old, multilingual, African Canadian Lover, Writer, Spoken Word Artist, Vocalist and Director of Mother Tongue Media production company recently relocated from Vancouver, Canada to Istanbul, Turkey.

Originally from Montreal, Tanya's words and vocal style honour the Sufi spirit of Rumi, the Griots and Griottes of West Africa, the streaming consciousness of the American Beat Poets, the vocal potency of Gil Scott Heron and the linguistic innovation of Saul Williams gathered inside an attempt to equal the smoothness of Billie Holiday. Anything is possible!

From a five-year foundation as a DJ and Music Director at her university radio station, Tanya's first spoken word poems were unleashed onto an unsuspecting live Montreal crowd in 1995. Though she left the stage drenched in nervous sweat, this initial performance was so successful that she was quickly flooded with invitations to perform at various art festivals in Montreal. Over the last ten years, requests to do readings and spoken word performances have persisted, and increased!

Tanya has been blessed to have traveled through 17 countries gathering inspiration. As a result, she has performed as a professional Writer, Spoken Word Artist and Vocalist in English, French, Spanish, Yoruba and Arabic in cafés and clubs, at international festivals, performance centers and schools, on national television and radio, and in prisons, bookstores and libraries across Canada and beyond. Some bigger Canadian performances include the 2004 Vancouver Folk Music Festival as opening act for Billy Bragg; live in-studio performance on CBC Television's ZeD TV in 2002; and as part of When Sisters Speak in the Toronto St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

The alchemy of combining music with spoken word has allowed Tanya to open for and perform alongside a number of Artists including Spoken Word Artists Ursula Rucker, Michael Franti (of Spearhead), Rha Goddess (of KRS One), D'bi Young, Kia Kadiri, C.R. Avery and Motion; Musicians Pepe Danza and Sal Ferreras; Poets Ted Joans, bill bissett and Wayde Compton; Toronto's Caribbean Dance Theatre and Vancouver's Science Friction dance group among others...

Invisible World (2004) is the best of Tanya's work gathered in an audio CD. This Canada Council-funded spoken word project features collaborations with native Canadian as well as Vancouver-based international Musicians in the spirit of Spoken World Music. It also received rave reviews in Canadian media such as CBC Radio One and Two and in Vancouver's The Province daily newspaper, which gave it 4/5 stars.

ISTANBUL . TURKEY
On July 13th, 2004, Tanya landed in Istanbul, where she has decided to emigrate.

She has recently performed new work at various venues in Istanbul as lead vocalist with Turkish experimental electronic group Mugwump. The band has been featured in several major Turkish newspapers and magazines. This work is in addition to Tanya's collaboration with American Musician-DJ Jerry the Cat (www.jerrythecat.com). Their nine-track music demo is being developed into a full-length CD of Spoken Word and Jazz vocals with House music. Tanya is also working with Paris-based Musician Laurent Briffaux, member of the well-known Electro-Tango group Gotan Project (www.bum-bum.tv/brifo). This latter project combines Spoken Word and vocals with World and Jazz music, both acoustic and electronic, under the name Brifo. And lookout - there is more work to come...