Amanda Tosoff

Amanda Tosoff is a B.C-raised, Toronto-based pianist, composer, and educator with six albums to her credit. As a bandleader and side-woman, she has performed with internationally-recognized artists such as Emilie-Claire Barlow, Ingrid and Christine Jensen, Brad Turner, Phil Dwyer, and many more. Her own groups have been featured at festivals across Canada and abroad, and have opened for jazz luminaries such as Bobby Hutcherson, Renee Rosnes, Oliver Jones, and Luciana Souza. Amanda has received various honours, including the Montréal Jazz Festival Grand Prix de Jazz, and the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Jazz Artist Award – and most recently, a Juno nomination and mention on the Polaris Prize “Longer List,” for her album Words.

Through her richly varied body of work, Amanda has gained recognition as “an assured, forward-thinking voice” (Greg Buium, Vancouver Sun) on the Canadian jazz scene and beyond – not only as a composer and performer, but also as an educator. She is on faculty at Humber College, and has been a featured artist and clinician at universities and conferences, including the 2020 Canadian Jazz Summit at the University of Manitoba. Amanda is also co-artistic director of newly-founded online education company, Music Arts Collective, alongside bassist/educator Jodi Proznick and arts-administrator Francesca Fung.

In Amanda’s artistry, one hears a rigorous, deeply felt command of the jazz piano lineage as well as an eagerness to push beyond labels, finding inspiration from various sources and disciplines. This is most evident on Amanda’s recording Words, which featured highly-regarded singer Felicity Williams (of such bands as Broken Social Scene and Bahamas). Blending poetry, jazz, art-song and folk-pop, Words garnered great acclaim and revealed “a well-developed knack for animating her material with fine counterpoint and colourful sonic combinations” (Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen). It also landed Amanda her first Juno nomination (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys).