Falling, floating _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

What APRA Award-winning composer and saxophonist Louisa Williamson loves most about jazz music is that it is “constantly innovating and growing in the same way our society and culture learns and grows”. As one of Aotearoa’s most renowned jazz artists, she herself is among the catalysts pushing at both the genre and society’s boundaries, challenging them to morph and develop in new directions.

Returning to Pōneke as part of the Wellington Jazz Festival, Williamson will present her new work The Chasm Where We Fall Into Each Other for the first time at San Fran on the 17^th of October with a full band.

Blending avant-garde jazz, classical, electronic, rap, and hip-hop, her new work embraces the divides between society and the natural world. “There are elements in the music which represent a deep and narrow chasm or crack in the earth, sometimes with a river or stream flowing along the bottom of it,” Williamson says. “The lyrics I have written contain themes about ‘falling into’ the divide, in order to explore oneself and each other’s differences. The music explores ideas of meeting one another and oneself at a core or base level.”

As they listen to her new composition, Williamson encourages audiences to fully immerse themselves in the music and formulate new ideas about themselves and the world around them. “The music is designed to make you feel like you are falling or floating down into something, so I hope you walk out feeling like you’ve been on a journey!”