Emma Rawicz Trio, St. Michael’s and All Angels Church, Cwmdu, Powys, 14/03/2026.

Emma Rawicz – tenor & soprano saxophones, vocals,  Jonny Mansfield – vibraphone, drums, Niklas Lukassen – double bass, vocals

Tonight’s event was presented by Friends of Cwmdu Music, a charitable organisation based in the village of Cwmdu, near to the town of Crickhowell in the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park.

The organisation’s aims are to promote the arts, and particularly music, in Cwmdu and the surrounding area with any profits from their regular events being donated to the “the preservation for the public benefit of the Grade II listed St Michael and All Angels Church, Cwmdu by providing grant funding for maintenance and support”.

The majority of the Friends’  regular events are classical, primarily chamber music, but most years also see them presenting either a jazz or folk performance. The jazz offering for 2026 was a performance from a trio led by the esteemed saxophonist and composer Emma Rawicz that also featured vibraphonist / percussionist Jonny Mansfield and the German born, London based bassist Niklas Lukassen.

I’m grateful to Dr. Catherine Nelson, the Chair of Friends of Cwmdu Music, for allowing me to cover this event and also to Lynne Gornall and Roger Cannon of Brecon Jazz Club who had worked closely with the Friends to help publicise the concert.

Emma Rawicz has been a regular presence on The Jazzmann web pages since bursting onto the UK jazz scene in 2022 with the release of her debut album “Incantation”, reviewed here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/emma-rawicz-incantation

A frequent award winner Rawicz is now a musician with an international reputation and a recording contract with the prestigious German record label ACT with whom she has released the albums “Chroma” (2023) and “Inkyra” (2025), both of which feature Rawicz as a bandleader and composer. The ACT imprint is also the home of “Big Visit”, a 2025 duo release recorded with the British pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock. My review of the “Big Visit” release can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/emma-rawicz-gwilym-simcock-big-visit

I have also been lucky enough to see Rawicz perform live on several previous occasions. My review of a 2023 live performance in Shrewsbury, which also takes a look at the “Chroma” album, can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/emma-rawicz-quintet-the-hive-music-media-centre-shrewsbury-17-06-2023

At the 2023 Brecon Jazz Festival Rawicz co-led a one off quartet with bassist and composer Gary Brunton. Review as part of my Festival coverage here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/brecon-jazz-festival-2023-main-weekend-saturday-12th-august-2023

I’ve also been fortunate enough to enjoy two separate performances by Rawicz at the annual EFG London Jazz Festival. In 2024 she led her all star Visitor From Everywhere quintet featuring trumpeter Laura Jurd, pianist Jason Rebello, bassist Conor Chaplin and drummer Anton Eger at Kings Place. Rawicz’s original music paid homage to one of her saxophone heroes, the late, great Wayne Shorter. This concert represented one of the highlights of the entire Festival, but unfortunately the “Visitor From Everywhere” material is yet to be committed to disc. My review of the performance, again part of my Festival coverage can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/efg-london-jazz-festival-2024-first-saturday-16-11-2024

The 2025 EFG LJF found me at the Queen Elizabeth Hall for a performance of the “Inkyra” material by Rawicz’s sextet featuring flautist Gareth Lockrane, guitarist David Preston, keyboard player Scottie Thompson, bassist Kevin Glasgow and drummer Jamie Murray.
Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/efg-london-jazz-festival-2025-day-three-sunday-16-11-2025

Guest contributor Colin May has also reviewed a performance by Rawicz’s quintet which took place at The Spin Jazz Club in Oxford in March 2024.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/emma-rawicz-quintet-the-spin-at-the-tap-social-oxford-28-03-2024

As an admirer of Rawicz’s music I was delighted to have been given the opportunity of seeing her perform with a new line up, and one with an unusual instrumental configuration, the rarely seen combination of saxophone, vibraphone and double bass. In keeping with FCM’s other events this was essentially a ‘chamber jazz’ line up, although in addition to the vibraphone Mansfield had also assembled a rudimentary drum kit featuring a snare drum, two types of hi-hat, a ride cymbal, sundry items of small percussion and a bass drum fashioned out of an Irish bodhran. He mainly played with brushes as part of an all acoustic performance with no amps or mics, an approach that was perfectly suited to the acoustics of the beautiful St. Michael’s Church.

Cwmdu is a small community but the Church was nearly full to capacity (somewhere between 100 and 120 I’d guess) and I got the impression that the whole village had come out to support the event. However there visitors from further afield too, including the nearby towns of Brecon and Crickhowell. Others had come further still, with Pembrokeshire and even London represented in the audience.

Spread over the course of two immersive sets the material was largely comprised of Rawicz’s original compositions plus one arrangement of a traditional folk song.

The Rawicz / Mansfield / Lukassen trio has performed together on two or three previous occasions but is not an ensemble that gigs on a regular basis. There was therefore a pleasing freshness about tonight’s performance and the sense that the show represented something of an adventure for both the musicians and the audience.

Much of the material is yet to be recorded and the trio commenced with “Rebecca”, introduced by a combination of vibes and double bass, with Rawicz later adding wisps of tenor sax melody before soloing more expansively, this including a passage of unaccompanied saxophone. At times her playing reminded me of that of the great Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, an impression heightened by the church acoustic and the chamber jazz aesthetic. Mansfield’s vibes soloing saw him deploying the four mallet technique and his dialogue with Lukassen’s bass evolved into a more comprehensive bass feature. Rawicz’s return on tenor saw Mansfield also deploying elements of his ‘drum kit’, at one point playing vibraphone and ride cymbal simultaneously.

Rawicz’s love of literature inspired “Pianosa Dream”, a title derived from the name of the fictional American airbase in Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch 22”. Again introduced by the combination of vibes and bass with Rawicz subsequently joining to state the theme on tenor this featured more virtuoso four mallet vibes soloing from Mansfield. He too has been a frequent presence on The Jazzmann web pages as the leader of his own projects and also as a member of the ensemble Bonsai (previously known as Jam Experiment). He has also worked prolifically as a sideman with trumpeter Byron Wallen, trombonist Rory Ingham, bassist John Williamson, violinist Dominic Ingham and the band Empirical among others. “Pianosa Dream” also included compelling solos from Lukassen and Rawicz plus, an absorbing dialogue between tenor sax and vibes.

In addition to Wayne Shorter another of Rawicz’s musical heroes is the late, great Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer Hermeto Pascoal (1936 – 2025). Her composition “Chorinho Pra Hermeto” paid due homage, beginning tentatively with Mansfield at the vibes before bursting into a playful, joyous almost child like celebration of Pascoal’s extraordinary life and music with expansive solos from Rawicz and Lukassen as Mansfield alternated between vibes and drums.

The first set concluded with “Komorebi”, a tune inspired by Rawicz’s fascination with language. The title comes from a Japanese word that has no precise English translation but which loosely equates to “light diffused through leaves in a forest”. A tenor sax / vibes intro represented an aural depiction of such dappling with Lukassen’s bass subsequently added. The music as a whole was possessed of the kind of fragile beauty suggested by the title and incorporated a melodic double bass solo from Lukassen, gently shadowed by Mansfield’s vibes, plus Rawicz’s mellifluous tenor sax meditations. A beautiful conclusion to an absorbing and immersive first set.

Set two began with “The Unbearable Lightness”, another literary inspired title, taking its name from the novel, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. Ushered in by Mansfield at the vibes this featured exceptional solos from all three musicians in addition to the kind of delicate instrumental interplay so distinctive of the trio as a whole. Mansfield’s solo was arguably his best of the night.

A brushed drum intro presaged the only vocal number of the night with Rawicz singing the traditional folk song “The Water Is Wide”. Although I have seen her perform live on several previous occasions this was the first time that I had heard her sing. Vocalising without a mic, she didn’t even use one for tune announcements, her voice was impressively pure and was readily audible in the environs of the church. I have to say that I was very impressed with her singing. The piece was also notable for instrumental solos from Mansfield on vibes and Lukassen on double bass, the latter largely unaccompanied.

Another literary title with the Ian McEwan inspired “What Can We Know”, a piece that again featured Mansfield gravitating between drums and vibes and soloing on the latter. Rawicz’s tenor sax solo was suitably probing and Lukassen was also featured at the bass.

“As A Cloud”, presumably inspired by Wordsworth, brought an extra urgency to Rawicz’s tenor playing and also featured Mansfield deploying bows on the vibes to eerie, atmospheric effect. Once again he moved between vibes and drums in a display of great dexterity that certainly impressed Catherine Nelson.

The deserved encore saw Rawicz moving to soprano for the only time as the trio performed “Last Of The Evening Light”, a tune written for the duo project with Simcock, but which didn’t make it onto the album. Mansfield introduced the piece at the vibes while Lukassen’s bass feature saw him deploying the body of the instrument as a form of auxiliary percussion. The leader’s dancing soprano sax melodies and her closing sax cadenza ensured that the evening concluded on a suitably uplifting note.

The combination of a beautiful performance space, a large and attentive audience and the superb playing of all three musicians made this a night to remember and the event represented a triumph for Friends of Cwmdu Music and their associates. It was a pleasure to hear these three performers in the kind of intimate performance setting that the music deserved.

My thanks to Jonny for chatting with me during the interval and to Emma for speaking with me after the show and verifying the set list.

Thanks also to Niklas for providing me with a review copy of his latest album “Still Waters”, released in February 2026. It features an international quartet including pianist / organist Kit Downes, saxophonist Ben van Gelder and drummer Francesco Ciniglio. There are also some heavyweight guests, among them guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and saxophonist Wanja Slavin.

I’ve credited Lukassen with vocals for tonight’s show due to his habit of singing along wordlessly to his bass solos. However the album also features him singing English language lyrics on one track and doing so very impressively. It is however primarily an instrumental recording and I’ll be undertaking a full review of it in due course.

 

 

 

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