These Days

Mary Barry Newfoundland's Jazz Chanteuse Mary Barry is an award-winning singer, composer and a graduate of Vancouver Community College's Jazz Program. She is a bilingual artist whose music has been described as quot;...a gold mine of nuggets for collectors of original jazz and bluesquot; and quot;New Orleans jazz spiced up with a Maritime saucequot;. Barry's third independent recording entitled Red Eye Tonight, which features musical giants Brian Way, Patrick Boyle, Bill Brennan, Gary Davis, Rick Hollett, Mark Peddle, and Gary Tilley, was released to rave reviews and won her both Female Artist of the Year and Jazz/Blues Artist of the Year at the 2007 Music Industry Awards of Newfoundland and Labrador. Throughout her career, Mary has performed and recorded with stellar musicians such as Elmer Gill, Jeff Johnston, Jim Vivian, John Nugent, Rick Kilburn, Graham Ord, Miles Black, Craig Scott, Jean Pierre Zanella and Jesse Zubot. Barry's performances include the Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Montreal and St. John's Jazz Festivals, Le Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver, the Banff Centre for the Arts, le Festival d'Ete in Quebec City, the Magnolia Springs Alabama Jazz Festival and Le Festival International de Musique de Femmes in Paris, France. Barry is an acclaimed songwriter, having won several songwriting awards. She was a semi-finalist in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition, the only Canadian to make it that far in the Jazz category. Barry's second CD These Days, which won her the MIANL Female Artist of the Year award and an ECMA nomination for Jazz Recording of the Year in 2005, features four award winning songs. As an educator, Mary has been teaching music workshops for over twenty years in a variety of settings, including festivals, conferences and as a visiting artist in the schools. In May of last year, Mary was invited to teach at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Gulf Shores, Alabama. In 2007, she was selected to present a workshop in her vocal method Vocal Express at Festival 500's Phenomonen of Singing International Symposium, followed by workshops at the Vinland Music Camp in Gros Morne National Park. In 2005, Mary was chosen to be the Gros Morne Musician in Residence, spending ten days in the national park performing and teaching workshops, while composing her personal tribute to the community, a piece entitled Over Bonne Bay. Mary Barry just recorded her fourth independent recording, a CD of French classics and original compositions. It will be available soon.