Brilliant Corners – Rebecca Hennessey’s Makeshift Island
May 15th, 2026
Doors: 7:30 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
Brilliant Corners – Rebecca Hennessey’s Makeshift Island
Brilliant Corners: A Silence Jazz Series
Seven intimate live performances featuring Canada’s finest jazz instrumentalists and a distinguished international guest Tim Hagans.
Where exceptional music meets meaningful community in Guelph’s Silence listening room—a space designed for retreat, connection, and deep listening.
Rebecca Hennessey’s Makeshift Island
Rebecca Hennessy is an award-winning Canadian trumpeter, vocalist, composer, and bandleader whose work bridges jazz, roots, and the singer-songwriter tradition. Grounded in a deeply personal yet outward-looking approach to songwriting, she creates music that is intimate, spacious, and quietly powerful. Her warm, distinctive voice and expressive trumpet function as parallel storytellers, shaping songs that feel direct, unguarded, and emotionally resonant. Whether performing as a vocalist, instrumentalist, or bandleader, Hennessy’s music invites listeners into a space of deep listening, subtle interplay, and emotional honesty.
A recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Jazz Artist Award (2018), Hennessy has emerged as one of Canada’s distinctive trumpet voices—equally compelling as a soloist, collaborator, and ensemble leader. She has been a Yamaha Artist since 2021, performing on the YTR-8310Z trumpet. Known for her lyrical phrasing, melodic sensibility, and deeply musical approach to improvisation, Hennessy moves fluidly between genres, drawing on the language of jazz while embracing the storytelling traditions of folk and roots music.
Her vocal recordings—including All the Little Things You Do (2020), Joy Will Find Us (2023), and Makeshift Island: Live at the Jazz Room (2025)—showcase her original compositions and highlight a longstanding creative partnership with guitarist Kevin Breit. Across these projects she collaborates with a circle of deeply respected musicians, including pianist Tania Gill, bassist Michael Herring, and drummer Dave Clark. Together they create a spacious and responsive musical environment in which Hennessy’s songs can unfold organically. Throughout these recordings, her trumpet remains central: lyrical, melodic, and song-driven, expanding the expressive role of the instrument within contemporary Canadian jazz while remaining rooted in the intimacy of song.
Her current studio project marks a significant artistic evolution, placing Hennessy fully at the centre as a multi-instrumentalist and narrative songwriter. Built around a collection of original songs that explore connection, memory, mortality, and our shared relationship to the natural world, the album reflects her ongoing interest in the emotional and spiritual dimensions of human experience. While one song reflects on her paternal family’s journey from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to Canada, the broader arc of the project celebrates something universal: our collective need to practice presence, care, and meaningful connection—to one another and to the living world around us. Her single Crickets offers an early glimpse into this reflective and immersive body of work, hinting at the spacious sonic landscapes and poetic storytelling that shape the album as a whole.
In addition to her work as a songwriter and bandleader, Hennessy is co-leader of the jazz quartet Way North alongside Michael Herring, Richie Barshay, and Petr Cancura. The ensemble has released three albums and has become known for its collaborative spirit and exploratory approach to modern jazz. Way North was invited to perform in Panama at the international jazz festival founded by pianist Danilo Pérez, further establishing the group’s international presence.
A longtime presence at Massey Hall in Toronto, Hennessy led the band for the Women’s Blues Revue from 2013 to 2022 and returned as a featured vocalist in 2024. Over the course of her career she has toured extensively across North America, Europe, Mexico, Panama, and Sri Lanka, bringing her distinctive voice and trumpet sound to audiences around the world. As both a performer and collaborator, she has worked with a wide range of artists including Adele, Ron Sexsmith, Feist, Broken Social Scene, and Yellowjackets.
Through her work as a composer, improviser, and bandleader, Rebecca Hennessy continues to carve out a distinctive space within Canadian music—one where jazz improvisation, poetic songwriting, and emotional storytelling meet with clarity, curiosity, and care.
