24/08/2026
Introducing Anje West, Artist/Producer from "To Sergio With Love" coming to the Jazz & Blues Collective on Sunday 6th Sep -
In 1998, with no Portuguese language skills, but a heart full of desire to perform Brazilian music, Anje, along with husband and musical director Kym Ambrose (vibes) founded The View From Madeleine's Couch; a band still going strong 17 years down the track, and specialising in their own original Brazilian-influenced music and their favourite tunes from the bossa, samba, forro and baiao realms. This is a band that has very much put their own stamp on the genre, preferring to take the music and run off somewhere beautiful with it. Rather than exacting replication, the music is performed with reverence and respect to its roots, and the band's sound remains unique in Brazilian/Jazz music in Australia.
Anje is considered one of Australia's finest interpreters of the genre, and is an award-winning songwriter, taking out the Queensland Music Award for World Music Song of the Year in 2009. With a background in street theatre (roving a'capella groups The Flying Ezmereldas and The Super Supremes), blues bands, choirs and small vocal ensembles, flying headlong into a career as a singer of Brazilian songs didn't seem like a given!
But the passion for Brazilian music was (and remains), very strong. Anje has traveled three times to live and study music in Brazil, working on her percussion skills with some of Rio's top teachers including Bernardo Aguiar and Pedro Lima. On the band's last tour to Brazil, they were joined by legendary drummer Marcio Bahia (Hermeto Pascoal, Hamilton de Holanda), bassist to Joao Donato and Marcos Valle, Mazinho Ventura, and jazz guitarist Dino Rangel, becoming a truly international OzBrazilian band.
Anje has also been featured in Women In Voice (11), the longest-running show of its kind in Australia, that each year highlights the work of five outstanding female performers. This year the show turns 22. She was a cast member of La Boîte Theatre's "Emma Celebrazione", and for the past 12 years, has been working closely with vocalists Barbara Fordham and Leah Cotterell for Musica Viva in Schools. Their touring program has seen them travel the length and breadth of Australia, from remote indigenous communities to almost every capital city and regional area, taking their beautiful 3-part harmony show into primary schools around the country...about 65,000 children have attended a Gypsy Tober concert!
In between tours, Anje has recorded two EP's and two full-length albums with her band: Casa da Boa Vida – The View From Madeleine’s Couch 2009 Sabor – The View From Madeleine’s Couch 2007 Tranquilo – The View From Madeleine’s Couch 2005 The View From Madeleine’s Couch (self titled). 2002
