Future stars of jazz tune up with jazz supremo, David Lyttle
11th March, 2022
A group of young people from across Northern Ireland are taking part in Jazz Juniors, a youth music educational programme launched by Jazzlife Alliance, supported by The National Lottery. Its members, aged 9-16, are taught by internationally-acclaimed, MOBO Award nominated jazz musician, David Lyttle, to learn the skills of playing jazz and they also perform in concerts throughout Northern Ireland. As part of the programme, the ensemble also get the opportunity to be coached and learn from other international jazz musicians throughout the year.
The Jazz Juniors ensemble rehearse with David Lyttle once a month at The MAC in Belfast and they also perform in concerts as David’s support act. It is an under eighteen scheme with no lower age limit, the youngest is nine. All the students are total beginners to jazz and everyone in this ensemble has a different musical background, some have come with a good knowledge of musical theory and others have come with none, and the main requirement of the scheme is that participants are very serious about music, very passionate about music and interested in learning jazz.
David Lyttle, Jazzlife Alliance Artistic Director and jazz musician, commented,
“Jazz Juniors is a first-of-its kind education scheme for Northern Ireland that teaches jazz to gifted young people who come from a range of backgrounds and have a passion for music. It’s been great seeing their confidence and abilities grow. At the audition stage they could all improvise a little and now they can improvise over jazz tunes which is remarkable given that they’ve only had six rehearsals so far. They’re getting thrown in the deep end by playing concerts but playing concerts and being on stage is the best way to get good at jazz. I’m very proud of all the young musicians taking part and look forward to seeing them develop further.”
Ciaran Scullion, Head of Music and Opera, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, said,
“Thanks to The National Lottery players, these gifted young people are being given the opportunity to learn new skills and jazz from an internationally acclaimed jazz musician. The Arts Council is committed to supporting opportunities for our young people to access and participate in high quality music making and Jazz Juniors is the perfect platform to nurture and develop gifted young musicians. Congratulations to all involved.”
Hear and see Jazz juniors next at The Ardowen Theatre in Enniskillen on Friday 15th April at 7pm when they perform as the supporting act for David Lyttle and jazz guitarist, Phil Robson.
For more information on the work of Jazzlife Alliance visit www.jazzlifealliance.org