Diana Leverington

Diana Leverington is a tenor sax player who moved to Edinburgh, Scotland from Karlstad, Sweden in 1994.Originally a dentist by profession, she grew up in a musical environment. Diana's father was guitar player and lead singer in the popular 60's rock group Ken Levy and The Phantoms.Diana's influences include Earth, Wind, and Fire, Donald Fagen, Al Jarreau, Paul Simon, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Bach, ABBA and many more......In the relatively short time she has been pursuing and developing her musical voice as a jazz tenor player, Diana has created a singularly unique voice that can be described as a classic old school tenor sound combined with a contemporary, understated melodic sense which is capable of unpredictable bursts of fleeting brilliance. As a composer, she displays a natural and unpretentious melodic gift and harmonic pallet covering a wide range of styles and influences.Diana has been active on the Scottish music scene since 1999 playing mostly in and around Edinburgh with everything from big bands to smaller jazz and pop ensembles. In 2002 she played at the North Sea Jazz Festival, one of the world's most prestigious jazz festivals with the RBLS Big Band from Edinburgh.In 2003 she performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival on one of the peripheral stages with the same band. Other performances include Henry's jazz cellar, as well as the Jazzbar in Edinburgh, the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen, the Glasgow jazz festival 2007, and Ryles jazz club in Boston and the Berklee Performance Centre.In 2004 she was awarded an achievement based scholarship to Berklee College Of Music in Boston. At Berklee Diana has studied tenor saxophone with Dino Govoni and Jim Odgren, composition and arranging with Scott Free, Jackson Schultz and Jeff Friedman, Greg Hopkins, Dick Lowell as well as jazz improvisation with Hal Crook.In the Summer of 2008, she graduated with a professional diploma in Jazz Composition (Magna Cum Laude)Diana also has recording experience when in 2000 she recorded a play called "A Flame In Your Heart" in front of a live audience for BBC Radio 4. She also has experience from numerous jazz and pop studio recording projects including a recording session produced by visiting artist Grammy award winner Barry Eastmond in 2008 as well as George Massenburg later that same year.Also in 2008 Diana performed with Kenwood Dennard and Fred Wesley at the Berklee Performance Centre.Diana also doubles on Soprano sax, Flute and vocals, and has done voice overs....................................................... ............................................................ .............. www.myspace.com/154sax.........www.hoganwebdesign.co.uk..... .....www.scoothogan.co.uk