Martin Speake and Alcyona Mick

Martin Speake has been a professional musician for some 40 years. First coming to prominence in 1986 with the saxophone quartet Itchy Fingers winning the Schlitz Young Jazz Musician award and touring the world with them for two years. After leaving them in 1988 he has embarked on a solo career and has been a prolific writer and recording artist. Speake’s music is difficult to categorise as he has many influences and he has worked in many contexts from the straight ahead, Indian/Arab music, free improvisation, improvising on Bartok themes, and much original music.

“Change of Heart makes a compelling case that Martin Speake is one of the most interesting and rewarding alto saxophonists now playing jazz on any continent.” – Thomas Conrad Jazz Times

“There is a fragile beauty to the way this music hangs together. You cannot help but wonder at the sheer craftsmanship that made it possible.” – Stuart Nicholson Observer Music Monthly

“Simple directness, overtly beautiful, cool and compact: just wonderful.” – Budd Kopmann All About Jazz

Alcyona Mick is a London based jazz pianist and composer. As a musician she has performed worldwide and worked with a wide array of artists in the UK and abroad, performing at major European, American and Canadian festivals and North Africa and the Middle East.

Alongside her co-led duo with Tori Freestone she works regularly with Natacha Atlas, London Jazz Orchestra, Brigitte Beraha’s ‘Lucid dreamers’, Yazz Ahmed. She has performed with an array of other artists including Bachar Zarkan, Randolph Matthews, Henry Lowther, Eddie Parker’s Debussy Mirrored ensemble, Ingrid and Christine Jensen, Jerry Dammers, and Mircan Kaya with whom she has worked in Turkey performing for a television series ‘Kanavice’ on TRT.

As a writer she has released several critically acclaimed albums and trained as a film composer at the NFTS, writing music for documentary, independent film, TV and silent film. She has won awards including best film soundtrack at the Anima Mundi International festival Brazil and the UK Promoter’s Choice jazz award, and received a nomination for a Parliamentary Jazz award.

“World class ingenuity” – The Guardian

“Alcyona Mick is an unusual powerhouse of a talent” – MOJO