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| Amanda Monaco |
About
“A cliché-free, inventive player who doesn't neatly fit into any of the usual modes of contemporary jazz guitar playing.” - Jazz Times
Biography
Grammy-nominated jazz guitarist and composer Amanda Monaco was born in New Haven, Conn. and has lived in New York City since 1995. She has an M.A. from the City College of New York, a B.Mus from William Paterson University and has studied with Ted Dunbar, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, Steve Wilson and Gene Bertoncini. Monaco is an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and has also taught at New School University and the National Guitar Summer Workshop.
Monaco has recorded four CDs as a leader/co-leader, employing a variety of styles in her music. Her latest CD, The Pirkei Avot Project, Vol. 1, sets verses of ancient rabbinic text to original compositions for voice, guitar, recorder, bass and percussion, ranging from rubato tone poems to an off-kilter waltz in the style of Tom Waits. In her more “traditional” jazz projects, Monaco writes music that sounds like what might have happened if Miles Davis were musical director of The Muppet Show: free-bop sensibilities combined with through-composition equal parts textural, adventurous, and whimsical.
Monaco has performed at the Blue Note, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the JVC and Winter Jazz Festivals, as well as other venues in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East and has shared the stage with musicians such as Milt Hinton, Cindy Blackman-Santana, and Fred Ho. Monaco is a resident musician at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, playing both modern and traditional stringed instruments while participating in recordings and workshops of liturgical music. In 2012, Monaco founded of the Queens Jazz OverGround, an outreach organization committed to bringing jazz to the borough of Queens and beyond. Monaco is the author of Jazz Guitar for the Absolute Beginner (Alfred Publishing).
Links
Amanda Monaco - Guitar Rig Hero Contest
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