Nathan Hiltz
Guitar, Banjo
Styles: jazz, classical, Brazilian, Irish, folk, pop, classic country, Canadiana (Lightfoot, Murray, Cohen etc)
Languages: English
Hailing from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Nathan is a skilled performer having held residencies with his groups at The Rex Hotel, The Senator Restaurant, The Jazz Bistro, and in Toronto’s thriving theater district at Joe Mama’s for over 9 years. His groups feature music from the classic jazz guitar tradition, the great American songbook, and the great Hammond B3 organ trios and quartets. Nathan is also an accomplished solo guitarist, holding a residency at Motel in Toronto’s Parkdale strip for over 5 years. In this capacity Nathan has explored the solo work of master jazz guitarists like Lenny Breau, Joe Pass, and pianist Bill Evans alongside great South American guitarists like Luiz Bonfa, Garoto, and Augustin Barrios. Nathan is on a constant search for freedom within a wide range of forms and feelings. He injects improvisation into every performance and above all he seeks to dissolve the barriers across genres that are separated by time, place, and style.
Nathan has played at Canadian jazz festivals including Halifax, St John’s Wreckhouse, Montreal, Toronto, The Beaches, Kensington Market, Markham, Uptown Waterloo, Huronia Arts Fest, Barrie Drumfest, Niagara, Edmonton, Victoria, Medicine Hat, Port Hope, Calgary, Regina, Jazz on the Wing in Whitehorse, Yukon, and the Ottawa Folk Festival. Internationally Nathan has performed at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, The Northern Lights Festival in Ajicjic, Mexico and the Leopolis Jazz Festival in Lviv, Ukraine. Nathan has toured nationally with artists Terra Hazelton, GHT, Melissa Lauren, and Jill Barber.
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Nathan has appeared on over 30 albums to date. They include guitar trio, organ trio, organ quartet with saxophone, and quartet with saxophone. He has also composed and arranged jazz music for voice including The Bright Lunch Trio featuring Whitney Ross Barris and his Mass for Guitar and Singers, the latter recorded with SATB and subsequently performed by the Grace Church on the Hill choir. Most recently his genre bending folk jazz group ‘Samways’ received a grant from the Toronto Arts Council to record stunning vocal interpretations of early Canadian poetry in a female vocal trio featuring jazz singer virtuosos Shannon Butcher, Melissa Lauren, and Jessica Lalonde.
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