Jayne Rollason, Partnership Coordinator for the National Concert Band Festival, talked to us about their exciting new initiative geared towards young composers for the 2024-25 academic year.
Established almost 40 years ago, the National Concert Band Festival (NCBF) has developed and grown in size and prestige until it is now recognised as the largest, most active festival for wind, brass and percussion instrumentalists who play in wind bands or big bands throughout the UK. It celebrates and promotes their music and activities by holding annual regional festivals across the UK and a National Festival. The organisation aims to provide unique performing opportunities in a friendly, welcoming and musically enriching environment.
For the 2024-25 academic year, the NCBF is launching an initiative that focuses on supporting young composers to create an imaginative, original chart (approx. 5 mins duration) for Grade 3-3.5 level (US system) school big bands. The project involves six composers from the Royal Academy of Music, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), each working with an existing school big band. The composers will be working with the bands through Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025, with the aim of the world premieres of the charts taking place at the NCBF National Festival at RNCM on 12 & 13 April 2025.
Stafford Grammar School Big Band at the National Concert Band Festival
Composers will each be mentored by a jazz professional and the school big bands will receive three visiting sessions from their composer. Composers will benefit from listening to their chart 'live' during the compositional stages and receive practical feedback from the band and their Music Director, while school bands will benefit from being central to the creative process. It is envisaged that each new chart will be included on the NCBF Big Band Repertoire List for the following season.
The jazz professional mentors working on this project are:
- Nikki Iles, jazz composer, pianist and educator, Professor at Royal Academy of Music
- Ed Puddick, jazz arranger and composer, Lecturer in Jazz at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
- Callum Au, composer, arranger, orchestrator, and trombonist
- Andy Scott, composer, saxophonist and educator, Professor of Saxophone & Composition at RNCM
- Iain Dixon, saxophonist, Professor of Saxophone & Jazz Improvisation at RNCM
The participating school big bands and composers for this project are:
- Northampton School for Boys Big Band & Ollie Canham
- Altrincham Grammar School for Boys Big Band & Ted Ford
- Wrekin College Jazz Band, Telford & Ben Partridge
- Stafford Grammar School Big Band & Kamea Nemeth
- The Barry Graham Big Band at Kingsdale Foundation School, Dulwich, London & Donovan Haffner
- Trinity School Big Band, Croydon, London & Chris Diamand
This project is an Arts Council funded programme.
Find out more about this project on the NCBF website and follow NCBF on Facebook, X (Twitter) and YouTube
