Vicki Genfan and Jennifer Batten — a new common project of both guitarists

28. 11. 2009 07:30

Koncert v rámci XII. ročníku festivalu Kytara napříč žánry Palác Akropolis, Kubelíkova 27, Prague 3

Vickin Genfan (born in 1959 in the USA) is a guitar virtuoso, composer and an excellent vocalist. Her music operates on the boundaries between folk, jazz, pop, soul and world music. Vicki plays the guitar finger-picking style, uses the guitar as a percussive instrument and uses different instrument tunings within a single concert. She performs regularly at prestigious international festivals (e.g. Montreal International Jazz Festival, Soave in Italy, and Open Strings in Osnabrück) and gives concerts as a soloist throughout the world. In 2008 Vicki Genfan won the title Guitar Superstar, awarded every year by the American magazine Guitar Player to the most interesting performer in the world. She was the first woman to receive this most prestigious award in guitar playing. She recorded five solo CDs (Native, Outside The Box, Vicki Genfan Live, Up Close & Personal, Uncovered).

The phenomenal guitarist Jennifer Batten is known for her unique style of playing the electric guitar. She has performed in many bands and crossed boundaries between various genres from rock, metal and fusion to funk. For a long time she collaborated with Michael Jackson who had chosen her among hundreds of guitarists to support him on his Bad Tour, later she also accompanied him on the world tours for Dangerous (1993) and HIStory (1997). In 1998 she started to play in Jeff Beck’s band and their collaboration lasted for three years (CDs Who Else and You Had It Coming). She recorded three solo albums: Above, Below and Beyond (multi-genre), Jennifer Batten's Tribal Rage-Momentum (world music and rock crossover) and Whatever (electronica). Currently she performs solo and her one-woman shows have a multi-media form.

The collaboration between these two guitarists is a start of a brand new project and their concert will be one of its first performances.