Press.
CRIMINALLY GOOD MUSIC FROM COSA NOSTRA STRINGS
by Andrew Gilbert
October 3, 2020
SF Classical Voice
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KEEPING UP WITH THE JAZZ MAFIA
by Andrew Gilbert
September 9, 2019
SF Classical Voice
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JAZZIZ'S NEW MUSIC MONDAY: NORAH JONES, LOWDOWN BRASS BAND & MORE
by Matt Micucci
May 21, 2019
Jazziz
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SHAINA EVONIUK, COSA NOSTRA STRINGS, LEAVING MARK ON SF BAY AREA MUSIC SCENE
by Andrew Gilbert
February 27, 2019
Mercury News / East Bay Times
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Raiding the refrigerator at 1 a.m. after getting home late from a gig last December, Oakland violinist Shaina Evoniuk remembered to take a look at the newly released Grammy Award nominations. She probably should have waited until she finished eating.
“I almost choked when I saw we were nominated twice,” she says, the “we” in question including R&B vocalist Leon Bridges, who earned nominations for his album “Coming Home” and the song “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand,” which ended up winning the Grammy for best traditional R&B performance.
Flowing with a steady thrum behind his vocals, Evoniuk’s string work gives the song its melancholy shimmer, but her contribution was more a workaday recording session than a glamorous encounter. “We recorded the string part up here in the studio,” she says. “I still have never met him, which is so common in this industry.”
What’s uncommon about Evoniuk, in addition to her fierce musicianship, is her ability to elevate a vast array of musical settings by expanding an artist’s sound with the canny integration of strings. A member of the stylistically polyglot Jazz Mafia since she played on trombonist/bassist Adam Theis’s epic 2009 symphonic hip-hop production “Brass, Bows & Bows,” she’s become an indispensable force on the Bay Area music scene.
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THE BAY BRIDGED COVERS COSA NOSTRA STRINGS + THE T SISTERS AT THE SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL
by Jon Bauer
March 18, 2019
The Bay Bridged
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SHAINA EVONIUK: MARRIED TO THE MOB
Feeling a little lost after graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2008, violinist Shaina Evoniuk only knew that she wasn’t interested in the usual path paved by chamber music gigs and symphonic concerts.
“I was considering moving to New York or traveling to Europe,” she recalls. “I hadn’t found my musical compadres, and I didn’t know what my musical voice was. I was a recovering classical musician.”
With a job she loved teaching music at San Domenico School in San Anselmo, Evoniuk could pay her bills, but it wasn’t until receiving an unexpected email from the Godfather that she found herself inexorably drawn into the fearsome Bay Area conspiracy known as the Jazz Mafia. These days, she’s a made member of the stylistically heedless crew, and she celebrates the release of her debut album Hitwoman Honey with the Cosa Nostra Strings on Wednesday at the California Jazz Conservatory’s Rendon Hall in a concert co-presented by Jazz in the Neighborhood.
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