Kyle Shepherd - FineArt (2009/2011)

Kyle Shepherd (8 July 1987 in Cape Town) is a South African Jazz musician (Piano, Saxophone, Xaru, singing, composition) and poet. Musically, Shepherd is based on the roots of Township-Jazz and Goema-Beat.

Shepherd, whose mother worked as a violinist at Abdullah Ibrahim school M7, received classical violin lessons from the age of five. As a teenager he discovered improvisation and learned to play the piano as a self-taught. Since 2009 he has recorded several albums with his trio or quartet. On the album Into Darkness he acted as a solo pianist. He wrote the soundtrack for the feature film ``Noem my Skollie: Call Me Thief (2016).

Shepherd has worked with musicians such as Zim Ngqawana, Louis Moholo, Robbie Jansen, Errol Dyers, Hilton Schilder, Mark Fransman and Ayanda Sikade . His tours led to southern Africa as well as to Europe, Japan and China. Shepherd appeared as a guest musician on the albums of Carlo Mombelli, Kesivan Naidoo, Andreas Tschopp and in the band Skyjack with. As curator of the SWR New Jazz Meeting 2016 he gave several concerts with his group and the soloists Lionel Loueke and Mthunzi Mvubu.

Shepherd's album fineArt was nominated in 2010 for the South African Music Awards (SAMA) in the category "Best Traditional Jazz", his album "A Portrait of Home" in the following year. In 2014 he won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for the genre Jazz.