Artist Development Days
Jazz North’s Artist Development Days are in-person networking events hosted in partnership with brilliant venues and festivals around the North of England once or twice a year. These events are relaxed and informative spaces for meeting like-minded musicians and getting practical advice from fantastic industry people.
Previous artist development days have been held in partnership with Leeds Jazz Festival, Lancaster Jazz Festival and Brighter Sound. Our Jazz North x Leeds Jazz Festival Artist Social in June 2022 featured brilliant speakers and sessions on funding, finance and how to get those all important gigs. In September 2023, we teamed up with Lancaster Jazz Festival to bring 1:1 industry sessions to their Inspire Artist Conference, a day dedicated to artist practice and led by artist-activist Kim Macari.
See below for latest events.
Jazz North and Brighter Sound are teamed up to host a relaxed and informative artist networking event at one of Manchester's most loved venues for jazz, The Yard. Flipping the usual day on its head, we kicked off with a jam hosted by Manchester's Xaris (Trees.R.Good) and Mara Cruz before diving into a day of real conversation about what it means to shape your career as a jazz+ artist.
We were joined by four fantastic artist-facilitators from different walks of jazz including Afro-psychedelic funk trombonist & percussionist Hannabiell Sanders (Hannabiell & the Midnight Blue, Ladies of the Midnight Blue), Alt-Soul singer August Charles, multi-instrumentalist electronic leaning artist Alan Keary (Shunya) and Private Joy aka Pops Roberts (Lovescene).
Upcoming
Thu 23 May 2024
Jazz North x Launchpad
Hyde Park Book Club, Snug Bar
27-29 Headingley Lane
Headingley
Leeds LS6 1BL
Previous
27 Mar 2024
Inspire Artist Conference
The Storey Lecture Theatre
Lancaster Jazz Festival, Lancaster
8 Sept 2023
Leeds Jazz Festival and Jazz North are teaming up to bring you a relaxed and informative event for artists on the afternoon of Thursday 23rd May at Hyde Park Book Club with our partners, Launchpad. As part of our support for emerging artists, Jazz North will be releasing a comprehensive guide to kicking off your live career in jazz: our Emerging Artists’ Live Toolkit.
This day is all about taking a deep dive into some of those topics, connecting with like-minded artists and sharing your own insights. With the help of some very brilliant guest speakers (to be announced), we will be exploring creative identity, establishing your values and goals, finding your place on the live music scene and growing your live and online audience.
We’d love to see you there. Spaces are limited so sign up in advance to secure your space and complimentary drink.
Sign up on our google form here to register your attendance!
We’d love to see you at Hype Park Book Club for the rest of the evening where live music and the Hyde Park Jazz Club jam session will take place (bring your instruments!). Visit here (HPBC) for more information and to buy tickets.
Event Schedule
15:00 Arrive and registration
15:15 Welcome and Intros (15 mins)
15:30 Finding your niche - creative identity, values and goals
16:20 Break (10 mins) - post it notes - share your values on the wall
16.30 Getting gigs - different types of promoters, making your approach
17.20 Break (10 mins)
17.30 Building your audiences - live and online
18.20 Closing session (20 mins)
18.30 Networking drinks
19.00 End
Jazz North and Lancaster Jazz Festival teamed up to run an open, creative and inspirational conference day for artists, hosted by artist and activist Kim Macari. It was an opportunity to connect with each other and the industry, and to learn and develop from provocative artist focussed discussions.
The day offered a series of insightful panel discussions and conversations with established industry leading artists, finding out about their practice and careers – alongside one-to-one opportunities to connect with funders, industry specialists, and much more.
Speakers included Orphy Robinson, Alexander Hawkins and there were one-to-one sit down opportunities with representatives from Arts Council England, Sentric Music and Groundswell Innovation.
Jazz North x Brighter Sound
The Yard
Manchester
Leeds Jazz Festival x Jazz North Artist Social
Belgrave Music Hall
Leeds
5 June 2022
Jazz North and Launchpad teamed up to facilitate a relaxed and informative artist networking event. Attendees spent a short while hearing from industry folk about practical ways to help develop their careers. There was a chance to meet and connect with other artists alongside roundtable advice sessions for some direct support.
Speakers included: David Porter (J-Night, Hull Jazz Festival), Jenny Harris (Freelance Programmer and Producer, HAR), Sam (whiskas) Nicholls (Music:Leeds, Launchpad), Sally Currie (Jazz North), Steve Mead (Jazz North, mjf), Jay Auty and David Culbert (HMUK) .