OUR PROJECTS
LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL COLLECTIVE
In 2009, as part of a GLA initiative to expand the London Jazz Festival to Outer London, ArtsTrain was approached by LJF producers Serious Events. ArtsTrain is all about broadening our participants’ musical horizons and jazz is one of the most exciting and adventurous musical genres that encourages musicians to create and experiment. We were delighted to host the first ever LJF event in Bromley that year and since then have participated annually in the festival.
We began by hosting a yearly showcase for the festival but have subsequently developed what has become our flagship and most artistically ambitious co-creation project. Each year, we bring two groups of young people aged 14-18 from two different and contrasting schools together with two inspiring jazz artists. To date these have included Soweto Kinch, James Yarde, Eska Mtungwazi and Rahel Debebe-Dessalegne.
The young people work together with the artist over a series of devising sessions and a residency period to create a new work based upon a theme selected by our artists and young people. These have been wide ranging and have included The Seven Deadly Sins, Waste and Consumerism, Gentrification, the Climate Crisis and Wellbeing. We encourage the young people to think deeply and engage in discourse especially with new peers who may come from very different backgrounds to themselves.
“I was a little bit nervous, but I’m quite glad by the end, I’ve seen everyone grow. I really enjoyed performing. I loved the compositions, but being on stage with everyone, and being in that performance mode, was my favourite part. It was really lovely to have this great band with such like-minded motivation.”
The project begins with some deep discussion and creative exercises shaping the new work, which has in the past included spoken word, film, sampling and visuals. From then on the young people work as a collective, collaborating in groups to create the new work. Like all ArtsTrain projects, the work pushes everyone out of their comfort zones socially and musically, creating a huge sense of ownership and team endeavour and a real bond within the group.
“I feel like I’ve developed my team work skills and just expressing my ideas and being more open.”
For many years ArtsTrain’s LJF Collective has performed the final piece at the Albany Theatre and as part of the prestigious Next Generation Takes Over Showcase at the Southbank Centre during the LJF. In 2020 the new piece went on tour, stopping by Giles Peterson’s We Out Here Festival in August before finishing at the LJF once again in November.
