When the young English saxophonist, composer and bandleader Emma Rawicz was 16 and a pupil at Chetham‘s in Manchester, the largest and most internationally renowned specialist youth music school in the UK, she somehow found time – in addition to her exacting music and academic studies – to practise between eight and 10 hours a day.
Although she had been playing classical violin since the age of six – and also had piano, clarinet and singing lessons – Rawicz had only started to focus exclusively on the saxophone – first the alto and then the tenor – for a year. And she felt she had a lot of ground to catch up on.
“I was, like: ‘Oh my God, everyone knows so much, and they can all do all this amazing stuff on their instruments,’ so I spent every spare hour pretty much practising, to the point where I nearly hurt myself,” the 23-year-old says. “Occasionally, I’d have to take Saturday off because my lip was swollen and I literally couldn’t play. I’d try, but it would just be too painful.”
In keeping with her remarkable personality – she is, she says, “a massive perfectionist, complete workaholic and habitual overachiever”, who speaks four languages and gained two private-school scholarships – all those thousands of hours of application and industry soon paid off.
Extravagantly gifted, Rawicz (pronounced “RA-vich”) began to show both a preternatural talent on the tenor saxophone, particularly in the tricky upper registers of the instrument, and an ability to write clever and captivating compositions that, as well as being firmly rooted in modern jazz, displayed fascinating connections to styles such as rock, fusion, folk, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban.
To say she was mature beyond her years was at once abundantly clear and a gross understatement.
Winning a place, aged 18, on the jazz course at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London, where Rawicz also further developed her not-inconsiderable skills on soprano saxophone, flute and bass clarinet, she began to play gigs, both as a side musician and leader, around the city. Word quickly got around. At the end of her second year, and still only 19, she made her debut, with her own band and music, at London’s most storied jazz club, Ronnie Scott’s.
In 2022 Rawicz self-released a highly praised debut album, Incantation, featured as a soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra and was named newcomer of the year at the annual Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
Favourable comparisons started to be made to such virtuoso American tenor players as Chris Potter, Joshua Redman and Donny McCaslin, and she began to play clubs and festivals throughout Europe. Rawicz made her Irish debut at last year’s Limerick Jazz Festival. Now she and her quartet are about embark on an eight-date Music Network tour of Ireland.
The activity and acclaim continued. In 2023 Rawicz signed to ACT, a creative and progressive jazz label based in Germany, and began to write for, organise and conduct her own 20-piece jazz orchestra. She also built an audience of almost 50,000 followers on Instagram for her winning daily practice videos and live clips.
Jamie Cullum – the English singer, pianist, songwriter and BBC Radio jazz presenter – hailed Rawicz as an astonishing talent. Reviewing her second album, Chroma, the Guardian‘s jazz critic, John Fordham, wrote that “the warp speed of her evolution is showing no sign of slowing.” And BBC Radio 3 declared, fairly accurately, that “the name Emma Rawicz is on everyone’s lips right now.”
“People say: ‘Oh, you’re so young to be doing X, Y or Z,’ and I know this logically, and that I’m insanely hectic and busy, and I’m very grateful for and really value that, because I know it’s rare,” she says, speaking from her flat in southeast London during a short break in touring. “But I’m also just trying to live life as it comes, to relish every moment, to have as many of the experiences that I really want to have as I can.”
Rawicz grew up an only child in rural north Devon, near to her maternal grandparent’s farm, Exmoor National Park and the sea. “I think being Devonian is quite close to my heart; it’s about valuing peace, space, community and connection with people,” she says. “But if you want to become a jazz musician, and be exposed to lots of different teachers, instruments and gigs, then growing up there may not be the simplest place to start.”
Her mother was employed variously in the civil service, social work and commerce, and her father was an engineer; both were highly successful and spent considerable periods working abroad. Her paternal grandfather was born in Poland (Emma‘s full surname is Rawicz-Szczerbo), but he left, aged eight, with his mother during the second World War. They made their way, mostly on foot, to Britain, where they were eventually reunited with Rawicz’s great-grandfather, a decorated general in the Polish army.
While her father has always played piano “for fun”, and her maternal grandmother played organ at her local church, Rawicz did not grow up in an especially musical household. She did, however, have access to her father’s iPod. “He was a very eclectic listener, and on there was everything from AC/DC to Avril Lavigne, classical music and Turkish prepared piano, and I loved all of it and found it very inspiring. I feel it’s good that I didn’t get a conception of genre until much later on.”
In her teens she also listened avidly to singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Gabriel Kahane, film soundtracks and the music of the Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell; she also tried to play Irish jigs and reels on the violin. “It was really very random,” she says.
The first time she heard jazz was when her parents took her, aged 12, to a concert by an amateur big band at the nearby Dartington International Summer School. She was immediately hooked. “The brass instruments and the harmony and the sound of the drums and the power behind that sound ... it just grabbed me,” she says. “The saxophone also seemed like the coolest instrument ever, and I instantly wanted to play it.”
Her parents, however, encouraged her to focus on the many other instruments, choirs, ensembles and orchestras in which she was already involved. Rawicz continued “to beg”; when she reached 15 they relented.
“As soon as I started playing the saxophone, especially the tenor, I was like: ‘Oh, okay, I haven’t been playing the right instrument’,” Rawicz says. “The saxophone was the one I felt I could really express myself through, the instrument that could help make music my life.
“I could also sense that jazz was a real nerd-friendly genre, which suited me, because I was probably quite an unusual kid. I think jazz is made for people who don’t necessarily fit into life’s prescribed boxes.”
That unusual kid may have been a dedicated bookworm who loved learning and was academically bright – she was one of only 730 pupils in England in 2018 to achieve the highest mark in all nine of her GCSEs – and in person, albeit over a video call, she is thoughtful, articulate and cheerful. But Rawicz has also faced more than her share of struggles throughout her young life.
As a child she had encephalitis, which at the time affected her eyesight, among other things, and which she believes led to her suffering, from the age of 13 to 22, from complex regional pain syndrome. “I was in pain for quite a lot of every day, and it was pretty rubbish,” she says. “But more recently I’ve discovered powerlifting, and I’ve made some diet and lifestyle changes. My health is now in a much, much better place.”
Rawicz also experienced severe performance anxiety, especially when she started playing the saxophone. “It was quite weird, because I loved playing the instrument, but I would freeze whenever I had to play in front of anyone, especially if I had to improvise,” she says. “It caused quite a lot of trouble when I went to Chetham‘s and at the start of my time at the academy. I couldn’t play in classes, or even in front of my one-to-one teachers.
“It was a long, long time before I felt in any way confident about my playing. I suppose I have overcome it. I think a lot of that is down to realising how important it is to surround yourself with people who want the best for you, on stage and off stage. And the idea of just having to get over myself and go out and do the best I can, because there’s no better cure, in my experience, than necessity.”
Positive audience and critical reception – and the Royal Academy awarding her, on graduating last year, the distinguished Musicians’ Company Silver Medal, a prize not previously given to a jazz student – must also have helped shape a more affirmative view of herself.
Her debut release on ACT, the adventurous and occasionally even prog-leaning Chroma, received almost universally enthusiastic reviews. (Its title reflects another example of the way her brain is wired differently: Rawicz has chromesthesia, a type of synaesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of colour, shape and movement.)
Its follow-up, Big Visit, a supple and sympathetic duo album with the star Welsh pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock that was released in March, went down equally well.
Rawicz rejects the stereotype that jazz musicians have to suffer to create great work – a fact evidenced in the many online videos of her spirited and upbeat performances.
“I’m not saying the tortured artist doesn’t exist, but, for me, music has been such a source of healing, growth, learning ... and joy. What I want more than anything is to continue being a musician that gets joy out of music and, more importantly, brings joy to the people that hear it.
“One of the biggest privileges of being a musician is getting to make other people’s lives just even a little bit better from doing what you love to do. I mean, how amazing is that?”
Emma Rawicz plays Letterkenny, Sligo, Roscommon, Tinahely, Dublin, Listowel, Cork and Newbridge between Wednesday, June 4th, and Friday, June 13th, on a Music Network tour
