Celebrating our biggest Jazz camp weekend yet
Girls and special guests Ros Rigby chair of the Jazz Promotion Network and Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group, making the #IWD2025 strong pose.
“It’s become part of our daughter’s musical calendar and identity as a musician. It inspires her to try new things”
Over the weekend of 8th-9th March, eight ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ events took place across the north of England. The camps gave 122 young musicians the chance to explore jazz and improvising, some for the very first time. Feedback from the camps received so far has been extremely positive -
100% of participants felt safe at their camp, 100% of jazz camp tutors felt that the project had achieved its aims and objectives, 93% of participants said that attending a camp made them feel more confident and 90% of participants said they would like to come to a ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ event again.
Jazz camp tutors reported noticeable examples of increased confidence over the course of the day. One tutor commented “…by the end of the day she was really confident in improvising and volunteered to solo multiple times”.
The Gateshead camp, hosted by the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, received two distinguished visitors - Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central & West and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG) and Ros Rigby, Chair of the Jazz Promotion Network (JPN). Chi spoke to the girls about her experiences of learning to play the piano, violin and saxophone as a pupil at Kenton School in Newcastle and her lifelong appreciation of jazz music.
“...I think that jazz is a really great form of music for women and girls to express themselves in. ”
Although this weekend is over, additional ‘Jazz Camp for Girls’ events are planned in Sheffield, Liverpool and Sefton for later in the year.
Next camp details - Saturday 26th April at Spring Tank Studios, (100 Randall Street, Highfield, Sheffield, S2 4SE) Save the date - details will be announced soon via Jazz North socials.