Join us for Lioness: Women in Jazz Concert Series, a 3-part partnership series happening at Flushing Town Hall during the Fall 2022 season. Each of these 3 concerts will be 60 minutes long and include a Q&A after each performance. This concert features the guitarist/composer Amanda Monaco and her quartet Deathblow. 

The purpose of each concert is not only to share the music of women composers with the community, but also to share the artistic process and methods practiced by these composers. It's also a forum through which the audience can have a meaningful dialogue with the musicians and hopefully feel more of a connection with the music and the artistic process moving forward. 

About the Artist

Guitarist/composer Amanda Monaco has performed at venues such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, and Jazz Standard and with artists such as Milt Hinton, Rufus Reid, and the Mingus Orchestra. She has released eight albums to date. Her current jazz projects include her eclectic quartet Deathblow, rambunctious organ quartet Glitter, and all-female jazz sextet Lioness™. Her Pirkei Avot Project sets her original, modern chamber music to selections from a collection of rabbinical teachings compiled in the third century C.E. 

Amanda’s guitar playing is “well within the modernist canon, but quite distinctive: her phrasing is often made up of tartly dissonant chords and insistent yet off-kilter repetitions that remind one of Grant Green by way of Andrew Hill… her playing is utterly unique, a breath of fresh air in the cookie-cutter climes of both mainstream and free jazz.” (Clifford Allen, The New York City Jazz Record)

An educator since 1990, Amanda is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, Berklee Online, and New England Conservatory. Amanda’s book, Jazz Guitar for the Absolute Beginner (Alfred Publishing), is available worldwide.
 
Amanda is the Artistic Director of Convergence Arts, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to share the art and fun of improvisation with people of all ages. Since 2013, Convergence has received funding from the Queens Council on the Arts for projects including the Six String Summit Guitar Festival, Queens Jazz OverGround Spring Jazz Fest, and Lioness: Women in Jazz concert series.
 
Amanda received her M.A. from The City College of New York in 2008.  In her undergraduate years, Amanda studied with Ted Dunbar, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, and Harold Mabern.  She received her B.Mus. from William Paterson University.