Nérija

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Nérija is a British jazz collective from London, best known for its album Blume from 2019. There is little to be found about the group itself in our source material. That source file is about one of its members, the saxophonist Nubya Garcia, and it says a lot about the world from which the collective emerges.

Music and breakthrough

Garcia was born in 1991 in Camden Town in London and learned violin and viola as a child. At the age of ten she began on saxophone. She played in the Camden Jazz Band, followed the youth programme of the Royal Academy of Music and attended workshops at the Roundhouse and at Tomorrow's Warriors. In 2016 she graduated from Trinity Laban, in the same class as Joe Armon-Jones and Moses Boyd. In 2017 her debut EP Nubya's 5ive was released. In 2018 followed When We Are, with which she explored how electronics can be used in a live jazz setting. She is also a member of the Afro-jazz ensemble Maisha.

Influence

Nérija belongs to the new wave of London jazz, in which young musicians got to know one another through youth programmes and conservatoires and formed groups together. The jazz of this generation is open to African and Caribbean influences and to electronics.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 2019Blume