Latest News
International Women's Day and the Jazz Camp for Girls weekend
On Saturday 8th March Jazz North will be joining supporters around the globe to celebrate International Women’s Day and, closer to home, our ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ weekend. Earlier in the week jazz camp project manager Helena Summerfield visited Manchester University to deliver a seminar and improvisation workshop for music students as part of their Musica Festival programme.
Education Forum: Focus on Youth Jazz Orchestras
The Education Forum focused on the conclusion of a significant project funded by Arts Council, which involved commissioning 10 British jazz composers to create new pieces for 10 youth jazz orchestras across northern England.
Jazz North launches new initiative to encourage improvisation in schools
One of the challenges facing music educators is finding reliable resources; when time and money is at a premium it is often tempting to stay with ‘old favourites’ rather than trying something new.
Is there too much improvisation in the Model Music Curriculum?
I recently counted up the references to ‘improvisation’ in the Model Music Curriculum. I spotted a total of 29. Is this too much? To a jazz enthusiast this is music to my ears (excuse the pun) but it raises questions of how a non music specialist primary school teacher or a less confident improvising music tutor would find these activities.