Jazz’s fab four coming to Johnstown Castle

JAZZ will be in the air at Johnstown Castle on Friday evening, April 19, with one of the country’s most exciting jazz quartets, led by vocalist Stella Bass.

Stella has performed at leading venues and festivals across Ireland, the UK, Germany, France, Australia and more. She headlined the Cork Jazz Festival in 2017 and has sold-out Dublin’s National Concert Hall on several occasions.

For this Jazz at Johnstown concert she will be supported by Johnny Taylor on piano, Barry Donohoe on double bass and Dominic Mullan on drums.

Outside her solo project, Stella has recorded with the Dublin City Jazz Orchestra and presented her own music show on Dublin City FM for over three years. She comes to Wexford following recent sold out shows in Dublin (The Sugar Club) and in Belfast.

Stella studied music from a young age, starting piano accordion lessons at five, followed later by singing and piano, both through the Royal Irish Academy of Music. A degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin followed, and in 2017 she completed a Master’s Degree in Music in Dublin’s Conservatory of Music.

She used the unexpected downtime of the pandemic to build on her undergrad IT skills to study Music Production with Berklee College, Boston and Music Composition and Arranging with Studio Orchestrations, Belfast, which has led her into arranging and producing sync music for TV, film and gaming.

She has already had several pieces of her original music signed exclusively to Warner Chappell Music in the USA.

Sultry Latin grooves, delicate ballads and vivacious swing numbers ornamented by playful arrangements and lyrical improvisations are also to the fore on Stella’s new best-selling CD, Look for the Silver Lining.

Friday’s concert begins at 8 p.m. and tickets are for sale at Johnstown Castle (Tel (053) 918 4671).