Jazz North East: Women Make Music
2016 marks the 50th anniversary year of Jazz North East, an organization which has continued since it’s very first concerts in 1966 to promote jazz across a wide range of genres.
Throughout 2015 Jazz North East hosted an incredibly successful concert and workshop series titled Women Make Music with welcome support from PRSF. The organization continues to develop this series as a regular part of its programming, with 2016 seeing no less than a quarter of it’s ongoing concerts being dedicated to Women In Jazz and Improvised Composition.
The organization continues to engage female artists to which it has previously established relations and to also present artists who have not previously had the opportunity to perform in the North East, whilst also supporting it’s local female composers and musicians offering high quality multiple bills and co-promotions with venues such as the Jazz Cafe, Sage Gateshead, The Bridge Hotel, The Black Swan Bar and Venue, Newcastle Arts Centre and the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. A core element of the concerts is that they are rooted in the performance of new music, new combinations of musicians and in some cases multiple billings which stimulate interaction between local, national and international artists from a wide geographical spectrum.
As part of the series Jazz North East also facilitate a number of workshops to encourage the interest and development of student musicians and the public, whilst providing a platform in which women can become role models through mentoring alongside performance.