Jazz singer Christine Tobin scoops top award at Edinburgh Festival
Entertainment

Jazz singer Christine Tobin scoops top award at Edinburgh Festival

IRISH-born musician Christine Tobin has been awarded a Herald Angel at last week's Edinburgh Fringe Festival for her concert performance of Leonard Cohen songs, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

The jazz singer and composer made her début performance at the inaugural British Vocal Jazz Festival at the world’s largest arts festival, in the Scottish capital.

“I’m delighted and surprised to win the Herald Angel, especially as the other winners came from across an arts spectrum that included ballet, literature and classical music,” she said of her achievement.

She featured her trio with guitarist Phil Robson and bassist Dave Whitford playing their arrangements of Cohen favourites including Suzanne, Famous Blue Raincoat and Tower of Song.

The Herald Angels awards are presented by Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald, and recognise excellence across the variety of festivals that are on offer at the Fringe during August.

Previous winners with a jazz connection include The Bad Plus, Jack Bruce, pianists Leo Blanco, Louis Durra and Brian Kellock, trumpeter Colin Steele and drummer Tom Bancroft.

Dublin native Tobin previously won the best contemporary jazz composition award in the 2012 British Composer Awards for her album Sailing To Byzantium, on which she combined jazz compositions with the poetry of W.B.Yeats.

Tobin is releasing a new CD of Cohen songs called A Thousand Kisses Deep in spring next year.

She will preview material from the album at the London Jazz Festival on November 19.