Raj Jayaweera | Drums

Rajiv Jayaweera was born in London, grew up in Melbourne, is of Sri Lankan heritage and is currently based in New York. He completed his Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2000 and Masters in Jazz Studies at SUNY Purchase, New York in 2013.

In Australia he was a highly sought after drummer, touring and recording with the country’s finest musicians and ensembles including The Joe Chindamo Trio, The Bennett’s Lane Big Band, The Sam Anning Quintet, Bopstretch and The Australian Art Orchestra’s Crossing Roper Bar Project.

Since moving to New York, he has performed at nearly all of the legendary jazz clubs: Smalls, Blue Note, Bar Next Door, Dizzy’s, Birdland etc. He has been awarded grants from The Australia Council for the Arts, The Ian Potter Cultural Trust, The American-Australian Foundation, and was a finalist for the prestigious Freedman Jazz Fellowship, performing at the Sydney Opera House in 2013.

He has toured extensively around the world, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Centre, Doha, The Cotton Club, Tokyo, The London Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival and Copenhagen Jazz Festival among many others. His own quintet were featured as artists in residence at the Thailand International Jazz Conference 2020 as well as being one of the headline acts of the festival.

This year, he will release his debut album made up of his original compositions entitled Pistils. The album features Chris Cheek, Aaron Parks, Lara Bello, Hugh Stuckey and Lara Bello and will be released on Outside In Music (USA) and Earshift Music (Australia).

Raj’s first release under Outside in Music, Pistils, is set to be released May 5th, 2020.