This is a wonderful celebration of the incredible musicians that we have here in Adelaide and Australia
Presented by: Adelaide Festival Centre and Nexus Arts
Reviewed: 30 April, 2025
For the past ten years, Adelaide has been recognised along with sixty-nine other cities as a UNESCO City of Music. Currently, we are the only Australian city to have this title, which we share with cities like Belfast, Glasgow, Havana and Seville. Each year on the 30th April, these cities around the world celebrate UNESCO International Jazz Day. The Adelaide Festival Centre and Nexus Arts help facilitate an evening showcasing some of the best local and Australian jazz musicians.
For the past three years, member cities of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network have chosen one city to write a work, that is then arranged and performed by each participating city. Each arrangement is then spliced together and the video is shared on the Cities of Music website. As Adelaide is celebrating its tenth year as being an UNESCO City of Music, our very own Mark Simeon Ferguson was selected to compose this year’s jazz relay piece. The piece, titled 3.23am, was performed in full as part of the UNESCO International Jazz Day concert by Mark Simeon Ferguson and the Adelaide Edition. The Adelaide Edition is made up of staff, current students and graduates of the Elder Conservatorium Jazz course and includes James Muller (guitar), Lucinda Wearing (alto saxophone), Ben Smitty (trumpet and flugelhorn), Jasmine Hall (trombone), Tasha Stevens (double bass), Bailey Hall (drums) and Mark Simeon Ferguson (piano). 3.23am is a beautiful contemporary jazz waltz with alternate phrase lengths. The piece is layered with texture, starting with just piano, then adding bass and guitar before the remaining instruments join with the motive. Their second piece, A Glimmer, which was also composed by Ferguson was more uptempo and reflected the glimmer of hope the world desperately needs right now.
Following a brief stage reset, the incredible Ciara Louise Ferguson and her band took the stage. Ciara (daughter of Mark Simeon Ferguson), presented a beautifully curated set that included her own compositions and arrangements of existing works. Ciara, on piano and lead vocals, was joined by Jasmine Hall and Stacey Theel on voice, Bonnie Grynchuk on double bass and Zed Crawford on drums. Ciara draws a lot of inspiration for her work from plants, wildlife and the world around her. This shone through pieces like The Cockroach on the Rose, The Ocean Has Swallowed My House and Amegilla Cingulata. Ciara’s solo piano piece Frankie, all about her dog, showcased Ciara’s sense of humour. In 2024, Ciara was awarded the Creative Original Music Adelaide’s (COMA) Emerging Jazz Writer’s Award. As part of this project, Ciara focused her works on vocal arrangements that could be used in schools and introduce the concept of jazz. This was demonstrated in her arrangement of Harry Styles’ As It Was. Ciara’s musicianship is next level. Not only is she an exceptional pianist, her voice is just sublime. When blending with the other two vocalists, it was pure harmonic magic. Their intricate three-part harmonies filled the Dunstan Playhouse.
Ciara also announced the 2025 COMA recipient of the Emerging Jazz Writer’s Award. This year it went to jazz vocalist and composer Danica Elle.
Following the interval, the incredible Zela Margossian Quintet took to the stage. Like Mark and Ciara’s music, the Zela Margossian Quintet’s music is magically constructed, creating such vivid imagery around the themes of each piece. This was particularly evident in numbers such as The Child in Me and Ceasefire. Their pieces often started with a unison motif shared between piano, bass and reed, then each instrument would divert into stunning harmony passages and intricate solos. This ARIA-nominated ethno-jazz band from Sydney presented wonderful set pieces from their first two albums, and a few sneak peeks at numbers from their soon-to-be released third album. Zela Margossian Quintet’s music is heavily influenced by Armenian traditional music, drawing heavily on modal scales to create unique harmonic structure in their music. The quintet includes Zela Margossian (piano), Stuart Vandegraaff (reeds), Adem Yilmaz (percussion), Alex Inman-Hislop (drum kit) and Jacques Emery (double bass), each world-class musicians in their own right. Their musicianship is second to none, and to see a tight ensemble like this working together is incredible.
This annual event is a wonderful celebration of the incredible musicians that we have here in Adelaide and Australia. Put the 30th April in your diary now for 2026 so you don’t miss the next UNESCO International Jazz Day.
Reviewed by Ben Stefanoff
Venue: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Season: ended
More News
