Zoe Rahman is an English jazz composer and pianist.
Early life
Rahman was born and brought up in Chichester, West Sussex, England by a Bengali father, Mizan Rahman, and an English-Irish mother. Her mother was a doctor who grew up in New Zealand. Rahman describes her childhood as being "completely English" and has described herself as culturally "very English". Her father's family is from Dhaka. Her maternal grandmother is from Ireland. Rahman started off playing classical piano when she was about four years old. Her family had a piano that her parents had bought for £10 and Rahman's older sister started to play; her other two siblings and Rahman followed her footsteps. Rahman and her younger brother, Idris, got into listening to jazz when they were teenagers and tried to work out how to play. Rahman had jazz piano lessons with various teachers and found opportunities to gig with other musicians. She studied classical piano at the Royal Academy of Music, received a music degree at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, and won a scholarship to study jazz performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she had lessons with pianist Joanne Brackeen. While in America she formed her own trio, which featured bassist Joshua Davis and drummer Bob Moses. In 2002, Rahman discovered Bengali music, when her father was hospitalised and she had transferred some of his cassette tapes of 1950s Bengali music to CDs for him to listen to while he recuperated. Rahman became intrigued by the sounds and subsequent trips to Bangladesh allowed Rahman to learn about her background through music.
Later life and career
Radio and television appearances
Rahman has been the featured artist on radio and television programmes such as Courtney Pine's Jazz Crusade on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, BBC London's Now's the Time, Andrea Oliver's The Selector, Northern Broadcasting Internet Radio, Resonance FM and Julian Joseph's Jazz series for Meridian Television. She has performed live on the BBC World Service and on BBC Radio 3's In Tune.
Recording and performances
In 2001, her debut album The Cynic was released. In July 2006, her second album Melting Pot was released. Melting Pot was nominated for the Mercury Music PrizeAlbum of the Year and won Jazz Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in 2006. In September 2008, her third albumWhere Rivers Meet was released. In May 2009, her fourth album was released. In January 2012, her fifth album Kindred Spirits was released. Kindred Spirits won the Best Jazz Act award at the 2012 MOBO Awards. Rahman was sought out by music producer Paul Vlcek to play with George Mraz. In July 2013, their album Unison was released. Rahman's first solo piano album, Dreamland, was recorded in 2015 and released by Manushi. Aside from working with her own groups, Rahman continues to perform and record with a diverse range of other artists. These have included: Courtney Pine; Clark Tracey's New Quintet; Soothsayers; Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra; Keziah Jones ; David Walcott ; Mekaal Hasan. She co-wrote a jazz-based theatre show, I'm a Fool to Want You, about the French writer/musician Boris Vian, with Told by an Idiot Theatre Company. Other albums or DVDs that she has appeared on include: Courtney Pine's Song and Europa; Reem Kelani's Sprinting Gazelle; the Clark Tracey Quintet's The Calling and The Mighty Sa; Tony Bianco's In a Western Sense; Gary Boyle's Games; Soothsayers' Tangled Roots; Brigitte Escobar's Brigitte; Terry Hall/Mushtaq's The Hour of Two Lights; Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian's Big Ears; and Keziah Jones's Live at the Élysée Montmartre DVD.
Composer
Rahman composed the piano score for the 2020 touring production of The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.
