June 19, 2015

Friday night live at Transistor: classical violinist Irine Røsnes and tenor saxophonist Thomas Caminito and folk and jazz singer Ana Munteanu. Sound by Jon Monteverde. 

Irine Røsnes is a versatile violinist performing in different genres from Baroque era to the most recent musical compositions. She holds music degrees from University of Bergen (Norway), Utrecht Conservatoire (Netherlands) and DePaul University in Chicago, where she studied under numerous sought-after pedagogues, including Ilya Kaler, Elisabeth Perry, Mikhail Zemtsov, Ricardo Odriozola and Isaak Shuldman. Irine has been giving solo, chamber, and orchestral concerts throughout Europe and the United States.

Thomas Caminito is a Chicago-based jazz saxophonist specializing in free-form and contemporary improvisational music. After beginning his saxophone studies in middle school, he continued onward to obtain a bachelor’s degree in jazz composition from the highly-esteemed Berklee College of Music in Boston. While at Berklee, he studied jazz performance and composition under the tutelage of numerous prolific musicians and educators including George Garzone, Greg Osby, Ayn Inserto, Hal Crook, Dave Santoro, Scott Free, and Terri Lyne Carrington. Thomas is currently an active performer in the Chicago area pursuing a masters of music degree at the DePaul University School of Music.

For this performance at Transistor, Irine and Thomas presented a unique program that combined written music of the early 20th century, improvised music and original compositions.

Ana Munteanu: “I was born in the Republic Of Moldova, in a family of actors, and have been passionate about music since childhood. The epic ballads, the ancient lullabies of my country’s folklore filled my soul. The psalms sung in the children’s choir made me humble and happy. I discovered jazz music while in high school and later went to study vocal performance at the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts in Chisinau. The following years brought challenge, despair and joy, a big desire of learning and a lot of performances with students, teachers and musicians I admired. My work is inspired by singers and poets I love. It reflects me and my life. I’m fascinated by the human voice, and feel very fortunate to be singing myself. I like exploring musical grounds, finding pieces of music that create moods and carry a message that resonates with other people. My raison d'être is staying faithful to the art of song, which is made (like any other art) to bring people to themselves, to who they truly are.”

For this Transistor set Ana was accompanied on guitar by Jarvis Raymond (pictured left) and they played songs from France, Argentina, Portugal, American jazz and more.

Visit Ana’s website.

Also available: an Ana Munteanu Transistor performance from April 18, 2014.