ArtsTrain perform at the London Jazz Festival!
ArtsTrain perform at the London Jazz Festival -Sunday 19th November at 2.30pm at the Southbank Centre.
Young people at our ArtsTrain academies in Bromley & Bexley have been rehearsing intensely in preparation for their London Jazz Festival performance. The Academies were guided by Music Leaders – James and Naomi, to create their own original music. They rehearsed each week before coming together to form our London Jazz Festival Collective.
Each year, we have a Guest Artist who visits and inspires the project, and this year it was songwriter, composer and guitarist, Dave Okumu. Dave has a wealth of experience performing in the industry, writing his own music, and writing for other artists such as Adele, Arlo Parks and Jessie Ware. Dave inspired our young ArtsTrain participants by setting the theme for the project as “Storytelling”.
In addition, to develop our musician’s physical confidence dancers and choreographer Temujin Gill lead a jazz dance workshop for the group.
All their hard work paid off as our ArtsTrain London Jazz Festival Collective performed five original songs that they had written and produced together. The Clore Ballroom at the Southbank Centre was packed, all seats filled with many people having to stand.
Big thanks to our ArtsTrain Team, Alice Hale and Annabell Pidduck for managing the project and to our wonderful Music Leaders – James and Naomi for inspiring the young people to create such heartfelt lyrics and amazing music and Assistant Music Leader Anoushka Congdon who did an outstanding job supporting our music leaders. Anoushka is an alumni from our Bexley Academy and has been really instrumental in supporting the young people.
Here’s a lovely quote from an audience member
"The ArtsTrain performance stands out because it is entirely led by young people. It’s different to all the other performances because they are introducing themselves and there are no adults on stage.”
Visit our communities & partnerships page for more info and a video!