Melissa Stylianou Quartet
August 23, 24, 25, 26 @ 8:30 PM
Melissa Stylianou - Vocals
Reg Shwager - Guitar
Andrew Downing - Bass
Mark McLean - Drums
Toronto-born, NYC-based jazz vocalist, lyricist, and educator Melissa Stylianou has been hailed by piano master Fred Hersch for her “gorgeous instrument, superb musicianship, and great taste”. She has garnered acclaim as both a gifted songwriter and a bold, imaginative interpreter of wide-ranging material spanning diverse genres, from the Great American Songbook to Johnny Cash to Joanna Newsom. Stylianou is also one-third of the infectious, Boswell Sisters-inspired close-harmony vocal trio Duchess, which has amassed many mentions in year-end critics’ polls and received the 2021 & 2022 Vocal Group of the Year Award from the Jazz Journalists Association.
In addition to her five albums as a leader and four with Duchess to date, Stylianou has documented her close musical bond with guitar legend Gene Bertoncini and sought-after bassist Ike Sturm on the 2022 album Dream Dancing (awarded 5 stars in Downbeat Magazine). This intimate, collaborative, highly spontaneous trio focuses on standards, with Bertoncini’s astute nylon-string voicings and arrangements in the forefront. She has made numerous top festival and club appearances and toured internationally and is currently developing a project that will combine her Irish and Greek-Cypriot musical roots.
This four night engagement at The Rex represents a long-awaited return to the place where it all started. Melissa's first jazz gig was on that stage back in 1998 (while she was still an acting student at Ryerson Theatre School) with a big band which comprised U of T and Humber students. Her longtime fans will have multiple chances to hear the "singing waitress" (she worked the floor at The Rex for 7 years), and this run will give Melissa a chance to roam through repertoire learned and developed before her 2005 move to NYC as well as more recent and brand new songs