FAY VICTOR
FAY VICTOR
New York based sound artist / composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocal role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Victor has an ‘everything is everything’ aesthetic, using the freedom in the moment to inform the appropriate musical response, viewing the vocal instrument as full of possibilities for sound exploration, a through-line for direct messages in an improvising context. Victor embraces all of these ideas in real time and on Victor’s 13 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the evolution of this expansive expression. Victor’s work has been featured in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Huffington Post and The Wire; Victor’s performed with luminaries such as William Parker, Roswell Rudd, Dr. Randy Weston, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Moor Mother, Archie Shepp, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few; Performance highlights include The Museum of Modern Art & The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), De Young Museum (SF), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle),The Winter Jazz Festival(NYC), The Kennedy Center (Wash. DC), The Big Ears Festival (Knoxville, TN) and the Bimhuis (Netherlands). As a composer, Victor has been awarded prizes such as the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition, a 2018 AIR in Composition for the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2020 recipient of a Jazz Coalition Commission to create during the pandemic.
In April 2024, Victor released Life is Funny That Way: Herbie Nichols SUNG, dedicated to the unsung bop pianist Herbie Nichols with Victor lyrics and arrangements on the Tao Forms label. This album received high critical acclaim including being #1 Vocal performance the 19th Annual Francis Davis Critic’s Poll and #23 on overall albums for the year. An innovative educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School where she teaches interdisciplinary practices and Vocal Performance, at Long Island University where she runs a private vocal salon. Victor continues to give talks and clinics on Jazz, Creative Improvisation, Composition and more at institutions around the world including a visiting professorship at Harvard University in Spring 2025 in the Department of Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry. As a bandleader, Victor continues to lead and collaborate with musicians involved in myriad practices and approaches including Herbie Nichols SUNG, The Tree Trini Collective (a collective around Victor’s roots in the Caribbean), Flutter (DUO with Nicole Mitchell) and more. Victor is also a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Chairs the Advisory Board for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, a new initiative of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music to fund black women and non-binary jazz leaders of the future. Learn more about Fay Victor at www.fayvictor.com and follow her on IG / FB as @freesongsinger.