The Sunday Tea Party with Karen Whittingham

The Sunday Tea Parties are jazz for the slow half of the weekend. Held at Kemaellis, they pair loose-limbed repertoire with cake, tea and the general business of Sunday afternoons ending. The format leans to voice and piano, or voice and small trio - American Songbook, bossa nova, ballads, the gentler end of jazz and blues. Audiences range from day-trippers to dedicated listeners; the room is warm, the arrangements are unhurried, and the music respects the time of day. It's the least precious of the year-round formats: come for the tea, stay for the singer, walk out into the early evening.

Karen is part of the MJFBF Family! She is a Horsham-based solo vocalist working the West Sussex and Surrey circuit. Italia Conti trained from age eleven to sixteen, she's built a career on range rather than specialism - 1940s through 1980s repertoire, jazz, blues, pop, Motown, soul - and calibrates her set to the room she's in.

LISTEN TO KAREN HERE!