Kari Nergaard Bleivik is a vocalist, composer, lyricist and music lecturer, born in Trondheim, Norway. She started studying music at an early age, and attended the music course at Heimdal upper secondary before moving to Inderoy and Sund Folk College to study at the jazz course. The following year she was rewarded a full scholarship at Sund to further her musical abilities and to take on some teaching responsibilities.
She moved to Leeds in 1999 to study towards a BA in jazz, and in her year of graduation received the LCM award for jazz and popular vocals. In 2003 she gained her Masters Degree after studying at the advanced jazz programme. She is also a recent receiver of a writing grant from The Norwegian Fund for Lyricists.
Kari has been teaching at the Leeds College of Music since 2002, giving singing lessons and teaching subjects like improvisation, ensembles, composition and aural skills. Also teaches vocals for Yamaha.
She is also actively involved in the creative LIMA scene (Leeds Improvised Music Association) where she is on the board and appears in concert with a range of projects including The Sharkestra and LIMA orchestra. Her own main two musical projects are:
-The guitar/voice/electronics duo Sonic Stories with guitarist Rune Mandelid. Their first album "Feels Like Night" was released on Vossajazz Records in April 2006.
-The vocal quartet Royst with other singers Maria Jardardottir, Anna Stott and Cecilie Giskemo. Released the album "Nordic Initiative" in 2005, and tours regularly. Kari has toured and performed in Norway, USA, Mexico and England, and performed at festivals such as Moldejazz, Nattjazz, Vossa Jazz, Young Musicians Festival, FUSE Leeds and Bjørnsonfestivalen. Together with Royst she has also written comission music for a festival in 2005, recorded for radio, theatre and film, and taught vocal workshops at institutions such as Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, The Nordic Institute for Stage and Studio (NISS) in Oslo and a whole range of FE, HE and Community Colleges throughout Norway.
In 2007 Royst did a collaboration project with world renowned saxophonist Iain Ballamy, Norwegian percussionist Thomas Stronen and the LIMA sax quartet. The project was supported by Leeds Jazz, LIMA, Jazz Yorkshire and The Norwegian Music Fund.
In 2008 Royst reformed and performed several festivals in the UK, Sonic Stories expanded to become an octet and Kari organised the first ever LIMA festival, a 3 day contemporary music festival taking place in Leeds, UK.
Kari is currently working on new musical projects such as the trio Vehere with Sean Foran (piano) and Joachim Badenhorst (clarinet)- look out for our debut album to be released autumn 2009 and Australian tour dates December 2009, a duo with double bass player Dave Kane, and a trio with Peter Lee (piano) and Matt Roberts (trumpet), as well as writing a shared comission work based on the music of Raymond Scott for the FUSE Leeds festival 2009.
Hiya We’ve been working on some new songs and are in pre-production for the recording of our first commercial CD release which will be recorded over the summer, with a hopeful release October time,
Our last live performance before our summer holiday will be at the Selby outdoor festival at the James Street 'bowling green' in Selby on the 21st June, the event starts at 1pm and we’ll be on stage at 5pm others on the bill are Dirty Secrets, Chantel McGregor, The Beautiful Sound, Last Gang and headlining is the Bryan Adams Experience, we hope you can be there.
Hiya It’s been busy in the K&Q camp and we’ve a few gigs coming up in the next few weeks. We are starting with a couple of gigs in York, Fibbers 23rd April and Speakeasy 28th April before moving on to the New Roscoe in Leeds on 25th May and then onto Nottingham Trent Students Union, Brackenhurst Bar, NTSU Brackenhurst Campus, Southwell on the 29th May, It would be great to see you at one of them if you can come. love K&Qs xxx
To get your hands on a FREE Lovely Laura mix simply go to www.laurafowles.com using Internet Explorer rather than Firefox, and follow the instructions! xx
Hiya We are playing at the Junction in York next Sunday on March 8th and the Wardrobe in Leeds on the 19th March. These gigs will be the first outing for Katie and the Questions with our new Drummer, Guitarist and Bass Player so we hope you can come and check us out love K&Qs xxx
Thank you, you too! Something like that. I haven't had much chance to get singing lessons sorted out but i've been looking around for some good ones somewhere local.. still practising all the same though! x
Hiya We are playing at the Junction in York on Friday 21th November; it would be really nice to see you there but we understand if you can't make it
We’ve put some of the new live recording up on our Myspace and are re-mixing our mini album ‘Kitchen Drums and Turn-up Tantrums’ which will be freely available from us at gigs soon Take care
Hi Kari.. good to have a quick catch up with you tonight! I speak for the entire audience when i say that tonight was special... I've heard to many great words about your music tonight.. It was inspiring and thought provoking! Really well done!!
'The Hitmen' - Alex Munk - Guitar John Marley - Bass Eddie Hick - Drums
Mon 10th November, upstairs at the Packhorse by the Uni. £2 entry, doors at 8.30.Loads of original music, support from 'The Dusty Ice Cream'. Hope to see you there!
We are headlining an Oxjam Charity gig at the Junction in York on this Sunday (26th October) with support from Hannah & the Junk Funk, Euphoria Audio & The Review, £3 on the door (8pm start), We hope you can make it; we’d love to see you there.
We are also playing the York Speakeasy 6th Nov, the Packhouse in Leeds on the 7th Nov and back at the Junction (in York) on the 21st Nov,
We have nearly finished mixing our mini album ‘Kitchen Drums and Turn-up Tantrums’ which will be freely available from us at gigs Hope to see you soon
Grove Inn Jazz Club, Back Row, Leeds LS11 5PL.
Sunday October 12 2008, 8:30pm
£4.00 waged/£3.00 unwaged
Guy Hatton (guitar), Stuart Garden (keyboards), Kenny Higgins (bass), Caroline Boaden (drums). Electric jazz influenced by Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton etc!
