After many years as a noted classical performer and teacher in her native Britain, Cambridge educated five-string violinist and composer Helen Sherrah-Davies relocated to Boston, graduated from Berklee College of Music - Summa Cum Laude (with the “Most Valuable Player” award) and gained her Masters in Contemporary Improvisation, at New England Conservatory.
Dreams can come true...as Helen is now an Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee, and visiting Jazz String Teacher (community programs) at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge.
"StarStuff", her debut recording as a leader, is the fruit of her remarkable transatlantic quest, the fulfillment of a vibrant and seasoned artistic vision.
Helen’s original works are trans-stylistic, jazz-infected, with a dynamic electric and acoustic mix, full of unexpected tone colors and sonorities. Her musical landscapes focus on storytelling, bathing the listener in prisms of sound. Darol Anger, acclaimed fiddler, has described Helen’s music as “so strong, it approaches the status of a new sentient being…. Even in the most thorny, complex episodes, we are moved to care, laugh and rejoice, washed by waves of melodic love.” Drawing on the improvisational freedom of jazz while incorporating rhythmic and formal devices from Bulgarian, Middle Eastern and other traditions, Helen follows a path of “eclectic inspiration, disparate sonic influences and the realm of the Imagination.”
NEW PATHS unfold...Upon hearing jazz fiddler Mike Piggott in a Sussex pub, Helen became consumed with interest in improvisation, which her years of rigorous classical training did not address. She earned a Certificate and Diploma in Jazz and Popular Studies from Goldsmiths College, began performing and recording with artists such as Mike Hatchard, Herbie Flowers (Sky, T Rex) and guitarist Dylan Kay, and ultimately arrived in her current home of Boston, where she won praise from Mimi Rabson as “one of Berklee’s most original voices.”
Helen’s stateside performing credits include Christiane Karam’s Middle Eastern fusion band ZiLZALA, the Underground Jazz String Quartet, the drumming group Inanna and many other collaborations at such varied venues as the Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the National Composers Conference Atlanta (performing Kari Juusela’s music). From September 2005 to May 2006 she led the Berklee String Orchestra, and she has twice won the honor of having her compositions featured in Women’s Musicians Network concerts at Berklee Performance Center. In October 2009 she played a well-received CD release concert for StarStuff at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge.
Along the way...
Helen's musical inspirations are wide ranging: from Bach to Messiaen (a fellow synaesthete), Fats Waller to Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, from Wayne Shorter to Astronomy, Shakti to Archaeology, from Nick Drake to travel and psychology, but most importantly of all, finding time to watch the flowers grow.
