Pianist, singer, composer, recording artist and co-founder of Chesterfield Jazz Club, Wendy Kirkland is celebrating increasing success in the musical spotlight. Fiona Stubbs meets her.
MUSIC runs through Wendy Kirkland’s veins.
The daughter of Chesterfield pianist Bob Kirkland, a familiar face on the 1970s music scene, she took to the ivories at the age of eight, launching a career which would take her from accompanist to acclaimed jazz vocalist.
Wendy is well known in Derbyshire not merely for her musical performances, but as co-founder of Chesterfield Jazz Club. Now she is reaching a national and international audience through the CD Piano Divas, a tribute to the female pianist-singers of jazz, from the 1950s to the present day. Launched last Spring, it won rave reviews in the national press, has enjoyed airplay on more than 50 radio stations around the world and secured a distribution deal from Discovery Records.
And, to top an amazing year, Wendy and her husband, guitarist and bass player Pat Sprakes, were shortlisted across four categories in the 2017 British Jazz Awards…