Umar Zakaria wins Recorded Music NZ Best Jazz Artist Tui
New Zealand School of Music graduate Umar Zakaria has won the award for his recent release, ‘Fearless Music’, produced in collaboration with other NZSM talent.
Following the completion of his undergraduate studies at the New Zealand School of Music, Umar was awarded a scholarship to complete his Masters at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, one of the United States' top music schools.
Upon his return to New Zealand, Zakaria and his band of fellow NZSM alumni, saxophonist Roger Manins, drummer Luther Hunt and current NZSM Jazz student and pianist Leonardo Coghini recorded Fearless Music, a collection of Umar's original compositions. Jazz Composition Lecturer Dave Lisik oversaw the engineering and NZSM teaching fellow Thomas Voyce handled the mastering of the award-winning album.
The Tui was presented on 6 June at a ceremony held at the Wellington Opera House as part of the Wellington Jazz Festival. Fellow NZSM alumnus and former teacher Anita Schwabe also took home an award, winning the APRA AMCOS Jazz Composition of the Year for her work Spring Tide.
NZSM graduates dominated the event, with recent PhD graduate Lucien Johnson also a finalist for the Best Jazz Artist award and fellow alumni Callum Allardice and Jake Baxendale also named as finalists for Best Jazz Composition.