Trombonist Siya Charles has just completed her Jazz Master’s degree in New York at The Julliard as a First Rand Laurie Dippenaar laureate and is a Jerome L. Greene Fellow and a National Arts Council scholarship recipient.

After many years of serving as a reliable sideman in a range of music genres, she has established a musical collective that features some of Cape Town’s finest young jazz musicians. The compositions and arrangements of the Siya Charles Sextet are inspired by a combination of classic jazz, South African jazz, the bebop and post-bop era, alongside Brazilian jazz, while the sound of the collective is held together by the combination of a rock-solid rhythm section and a tight horn section of trombone, sax and trumpet.

Siya grew up in Gqeberha and attended the NYJF for years, performing repeatedly in the National Schools and Youth Jazz bands, and it’s a pleasure to welcome her home!

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