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Alice is a clarinettist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist singer songwriter with a strongly academic background, gaining first class honours in Music at Cambridge University, followed by a doctoral thesis in ancient Chinese music and Astronomy. Through her doctoral studies she worked alongside and collaborated with an assortment of interdisciplinary academics and artists - archaeoastromoners, astrophysicists, sculptors, composers, curators, historians, writers and filmmakers - in Egypt, Poland, Spain, France, UK, Hungary.
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This love of cross-pollination has bled strongly into her approach to music - as a performing musician & composer her influences and interests are wide-reaching.
Between 2012-2022, as a solo clarinettist, vocalist, accordionist, pianist she led & managed Gypsy swing/manouche band The Kings Cross Hot Club. More recently she has been developing and performing her own songs under artist name Alice Mary Jelaska - on voice, guitar, clarinet and synth. Her songs focus on themes of family, loss, place, with hints of contemporary folk and vintage jazz. Her clarinet style has a Balkan quality - reflecting her half-Croatian blood - melancholic tones combined with a feisty energy - and her vocals have been described as ‘water-like’ with echoes of Molly Drake and Mildred Bailey.
Her varied experience collaborating with other artists includes leading multi-cultural group Ama Bazar as a clarinettist, vocalist and dancer; performing & recording with London-based singer songwriters Djanan Turan, Gabriel Moreno, Anna MacDonald, Corina Kwami; playing with a Javanese Gamelan orchestra; working with tango dancers and musicians across Europe; leading klezmer band Black Shabbat; recording and performing with Congolese musicians Mulele Matondo Afrika and David Lessie, Senegalese singer Biram Seck, as well as a many other folk and indie folk groups - at venues & festivals across UK & Europe, including KOKO and the Royal Festival Hall; Secret Garden Party and Wilderness. She has also worked as a session musician for BBC Television and for several independent composers.
Her commissioned composition work includes: ‘all I see is the same as me’ - a collaborative song created from a womxn’s songwriting workshop for International Women’s Day 2021 (Olympias Music Foundation); music and sound for Awa’s Journey (Union Dance) in collaboration with writer Beverley Knight, kora player Mosi Konde & guitarist Ramiro Nocelli; writing, arranging and performing music for SAGE Dance/BackStory Ensemble; co-writing the score for educational film The Starry Messenger (a film funded by STFC, and distributed internationally in 2009).
Alongside music, Alice is a visual artist, providing artwork and photography for a variety of projects - artwork for jazz trumpeter & composer Mike Soper’s debut album ‘Undoing’; illustrations for writer & spoken word artist Lia Burge; artwork/design for The Starry Messenger film; and portraits for composer Giles Swayne (providing photo portraits in 2009 for his website and numerous public profiles including publishers, festival listings, catalogues etc.).
Alice teaches clarinet, voice, piano, guitar and musicality to a wide range of ages - both privately and in schools across London. She is a facilitator, instrument tutor, arranger and workshop leader for charity Play for Progress, who provide therapeutic music and arts sessions to unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the UK. This involves arranging music & leading workshops for public showcases (e.g. at Amnesty International, Victoria & Albert museum, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall - in collaboration with artists such as Aurora Orchestra & Ed Gardner/London Philharmonic Orchestra), in addition to weekly arts, music, writing & recording sessions with the young people in Croydon. Alice has worked with Eugene Skeef, in a collaborative writing/rhythm/movement project with Play for Progress and assisted composer Rachel Leech at Spitalfields Festival in several music devising workshops for young people in Tower Hamlets. Between 2012-2015 she ran music/arts workshops for disadvantaged city children with the charity Kids Company. These sessions were primarily music-based but covered a range of topics from rap and poetry to story-telling and dance. Alice is an active tango dancer and has studied circus arts in London alongside dance.
Between 2012-2022, as a solo clarinettist, vocalist, accordionist, pianist she led & managed Gypsy swing/manouche band The Kings Cross Hot Club. More recently she has been developing and performing her own songs under artist name Alice Mary Jelaska - on voice, guitar, clarinet and synth. Her songs focus on themes of family, loss, place, with hints of contemporary folk and vintage jazz. Her clarinet style has a Balkan quality - reflecting her half-Croatian blood - melancholic tones combined with a feisty energy - and her vocals have been described as ‘water-like’ with echoes of Molly Drake and Mildred Bailey.
Her varied experience collaborating with other artists includes leading multi-cultural group Ama Bazar as a clarinettist, vocalist and dancer; performing & recording with London-based singer songwriters Djanan Turan, Gabriel Moreno, Anna MacDonald, Corina Kwami; playing with a Javanese Gamelan orchestra; working with tango dancers and musicians across Europe; leading klezmer band Black Shabbat; recording and performing with Congolese musicians Mulele Matondo Afrika and David Lessie, Senegalese singer Biram Seck, as well as a many other folk and indie folk groups - at venues & festivals across UK & Europe, including KOKO and the Royal Festival Hall; Secret Garden Party and Wilderness. She has also worked as a session musician for BBC Television and for several independent composers.
Her commissioned composition work includes: ‘all I see is the same as me’ - a collaborative song created from a womxn’s songwriting workshop for International Women’s Day 2021 (Olympias Music Foundation); music and sound for Awa’s Journey (Union Dance) in collaboration with writer Beverley Knight, kora player Mosi Konde & guitarist Ramiro Nocelli; writing, arranging and performing music for SAGE Dance/BackStory Ensemble; co-writing the score for educational film The Starry Messenger (a film funded by STFC, and distributed internationally in 2009).
Alongside music, Alice is a visual artist, providing artwork and photography for a variety of projects - artwork for jazz trumpeter & composer Mike Soper’s debut album ‘Undoing’; illustrations for writer & spoken word artist Lia Burge; artwork/design for The Starry Messenger film; and portraits for composer Giles Swayne (providing photo portraits in 2009 for his website and numerous public profiles including publishers, festival listings, catalogues etc.).
Alice teaches clarinet, voice, piano, guitar and musicality to a wide range of ages - both privately and in schools across London. She is a facilitator, instrument tutor, arranger and workshop leader for charity Play for Progress, who provide therapeutic music and arts sessions to unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the UK. This involves arranging music & leading workshops for public showcases (e.g. at Amnesty International, Victoria & Albert museum, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall - in collaboration with artists such as Aurora Orchestra & Ed Gardner/London Philharmonic Orchestra), in addition to weekly arts, music, writing & recording sessions with the young people in Croydon. Alice has worked with Eugene Skeef, in a collaborative writing/rhythm/movement project with Play for Progress and assisted composer Rachel Leech at Spitalfields Festival in several music devising workshops for young people in Tower Hamlets. Between 2012-2015 she ran music/arts workshops for disadvantaged city children with the charity Kids Company. These sessions were primarily music-based but covered a range of topics from rap and poetry to story-telling and dance. Alice is an active tango dancer and has studied circus arts in London alongside dance.
