Jorja Chalmers

Jorja Chalmers, born in Sydney in 1982, grew up to become a London-based saxophonist, keyboard player, songwriter, and vocalist after relocating from Australia. She first took up the piano during her teenage years before turning to the saxophone shortly afterward, then enrolled at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 2000 to 2004 and spent a brief period instructing high school students on saxophone. Once she finished her studies she headed to London, where she balanced a public relations job with club performances alongside the new wave group Hotel Motel. Bryan Ferry’s assistant happened to attend one of those Hotel Motel shows in 2007, leading to an audition that secured Chalmers a permanent role in Ferry’s touring ensemble, a position she has maintained ever since.

Her reputation rests on the bold, scene-stealing quality of her playing and an indefatigable approach to work. While maintaining near-constant road commitments with Ferry—including the 2011 Roxy Music reunion—she has also collaborated in performance or on record with the Ting Tings, Patrick Wolf, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, and her husband Ali Renault. In 2016 she issued the four-song, string-laden EP Indigo Eyes, which fans could purchase from the merchandise stand at Ferry concerts. During global tours she kept developing her own material in hotel rooms, gradually shifting toward a cinematic, synth-driven aesthetic that found an ideal outlet on the Italians Do It Better label.

Her first solo full-length, the haunting and ethereal dream-pop album Human Again, received mixing from Johnny Jewel and Dean Hurley before its 2019 release; the follow-up, Midnight Train, arrived in 2021 and drew from the work of Goblin, Haruomi Hosono, and the Doors.