I've recently joined a new hard hitting guitar led trio called Aeroplanes at Brescia. The music is heavily influenced by Allan Holdsworth and also features some more laid back, folky inspired music. We recently travelled to Bagnoregio in Italy to perform our first gig together as finalists in the Tuscia Jazz Festival European Jazz Award competition. It was a fantastic week of checking out some great music, meeting new friends, eating great food and enjoying the sun! 
Check out this live recording of a groovy Holdsworth tune from the semifinal:

It was such an honour to play our music for the judges - Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kevin Hays, Scott Colley, Eric Harland, Donnie McCaslin, Giorgio Rosciglione, Gegè Munari, Aldo Bassi, Elisabetta Antonini and Italo Leali - the director of the festival. What a lovely surprise to win! Above is Kurt and Italo presenting us with the beautifully painted plate with a portrait of Ray Charles. We will be coming back to Tuscia in Jazz 2015 to perform a gig that will be recorded and released. We are looking forward to that already!

We made some lovely friends along the way - check out 2nd place winners Carla Restivo 5tet from Palermo, Italy and 3rd place winners Acquaphonica. It would be great to collaborate with these folks in the future (hint hint!)

I'm also thrilled and proud to have won the 'Best New Talent' Award in the competition. Wow! Still blown away by that..
Here's a new tune that we debuted in the semi-final:

What a great start to the summer! And with a view like this who could go wrong? Special thanks to Pop Teodor from JazzyBIT who took this lovely photograph. A very inspiring week indeed.

Check out my slick new case for my Yamaha Hip Gig. Custom made in California by the folks at Beato Bags, it's made to measure for my odd shaped bass drum. It's waterproof, extremely heavy duty and makes carrying my 25kg of drums much easier (handy side handles). It had it's first wedding gig last night, and I'm a very happy gal. After searching high and low for a company that would make a case to suit my 18'' by 22'' bass drum, I've finally come across a great company with excellent customer service and flexibility (they even made me a secret compartment for sheet music at my request!) Even with the exchange rate, shipping and import tax, it's still an affordable case. They've got an extensive range of all sorts of cases, it's worth having a little gander on their site. Click on the photos below to expand them and see the finer details.