London Jazz Festival PreviewBarbican Creative Learning Day, Sunday November 14th,
(Preview by Sarah Ellen Hughes, Photo Credit: Rosie Reed Gold)
The Barbican's education department merged recently with the Guildhall School Creative Learning division. The merged entity's first major enterprise occurred during the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s United in Swing residency. It largely went unnoticed - we wrote about it HERE).
Now, during the London Jazz Festival, this Sunday is Creative Learning Day. One of the newly integrated team's ventures, the East London Creative Jazz Orchestra will continue its work, this time with the Grammy Nominated pianist Robert Glasper.
The orchestra is made up of undergraduates from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and young players from across ten east London boroughs. It has spent six days rehearsing with Glasper, and with the Blue Pepper band – a performance and workshop sextet made up of the cream of our very own jazz scene.
This work will culminate in a performance on Sunday on the Barbican FreeStage – part of this year’s Creative Learning Day (timetable and listings below).
The rest of the day’s programme includes The Boxettes - an a cappella girl group led by 2009 Beatbox World Champion Bellatrix. Each girl has routes in jazz and soul, so their music is interspersed with moments of brilliant scat and improvisation. The main draw though, is the amazing ability to drive each tune with a solid hip-hop beat enough to get the audience grooving – no instruments required!
Following this is Living Room which features Hang player Manu Delago. (Read all about the Swiss percusson instrument HERE.) Living Room is Manu Delago on Hang and effects, and Christoph Pepe Auer on bass clarinet and pepephon (not content at being second to a UFO, Auer has invented this colourful plastic wind instrument himself. I cannot offer a guess at what it sounds like). The repertoire is a mixture of chamber and popular music, including songs by Nirvana and the Beatles. Seriously fascinating stuff!
This is followed by young saxophone star Joshua Jawson, and the Soul Rebels Brass Band. Sunday at the Barbican will culminate with the double bill of the Robert Glasper Trio and the Terence Blanchard Quintet in the Barbican Hall. and the ELCJO orchestra will round off their day as members of the audience at one of the best double bills of the festival.
Creative Learning Day – Sunday 14th November 2010
Barbican Freestage2pm: East London Creative Jazz Orchestra
3pm: The Boxettes
4pm: Living Room
5pm: Joshua Jawson Quartet
6pm: Soul Rebels Brass Band
Barbican Hall 7:30pm: Robert Glasper Trio/ Terence Blanchard Quintet
