If music be the food of love, play on…
Photo shows jazz camp participants with their tutor Sarah Sands. Photo credit - Alison James.
“The 4-day pilot camp was all that I could have hoped for and more. The girls were super engaged and enthusiastic and grew in confidence throughout the week. This is definitely a model that I will be encouraging our jazz camp partners to adopt in the future.”
Our pilot 4-day jazz camp took place from 28th-31st July at the Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot and was organised in partnership with Sound! Music Hub. Sound! Music Hub serves the areas of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Warrington and brings together a variety of organisations to deliver music education and career pathways to children and young people.
The pilot was made possible due to funding from Jazz Danmark and the Nordisk Kulturfond. ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ was initiated by JazzDanmark and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 2014 and since its inception over a thousand Danish girls have had the opportunity to improvise and play jazz together.
On the first day of the camp the girls took part in warm up activities to get to know each other, had a tour of the Shakespeare North Playhouse and experimented with improvising for the very first time. On the second day of the camp they worked with guest tutors singer songwriter Ni Maxine and multi-instrumentalist Mara Cruz to compose their own music inspired by feisty young women from Shakespeare’s plays. On the third day the girls continued to develop their musical ideas from day two and learned about some key female jazz musicians with tutor Sarah Sands. On the fourth and final day the girls created graphic scores and prepared for their sharing session with family and friends.
One participant commented -
“I really enjoyed just experimenting with things that I’ve never really done before. I’ve never played jazz before so I really enjoyed doing that. I think the four days went past really quickly. I’m excited to show my parents and everyone else what we’ve been working on because I’m very proud of it.”
Feedback from the camp has been extremely positive and reinforced the need for ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’.
“My daughter has absolutely loved it and has learnt so much! She has already asked me when Jazz Camp will be on again and is desperate to come back. She has made new friends and her confidence has increased, particularly around performing and meeting new people! Thank you for everything, especially organising a group for young girls who just want to play/create music and feel socially accepted.”
If you would like to learn more about ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ and become a partner organisation for 2026 please contact helena@jazznorth.org
If you would like to learn more about the International ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ movement, see
Girls working with Sarah Sands and Ni Maxine. Photo credit - Molly Summerfield