Yamaha Education Projects

Yamaha Jazz Experience

The Yamaha Jazz Experience UK workshops, March - April 2009

The Yamaha Jazz Experience is a pioneering jazz-in-education programme, combining teacher training and masterclasses which took place in March and April 2009, leading to a national competition offering high-profile live performance opportunities for award-winning new jazz ensembles aged 11-18 at some of the UK's leading venues and live events.

Supported by some of the UK's jazz elite, who have delivered the workshops, school activities and the live events, the scheme has already delivered across a wide range of educational and training development areas, with a particular focus on the Music Manifesto's goal of developing the workforce in music education. The Yamaha Jazz Experience' s first phase was aimed at music leaders and teachers of 11-18s, from inside and outside secondary and FE classrooms as well as from community or private settings.

Pictured here: a teacher leads his first blues session at the Jazz Experience workshop at the British Academy of New Music, Hackney.

The first phase of the project was aimed specificially at teachers with little or no jazz improvisation experience and we took a series of one-day improvising workshops to Portsmouth, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, South Shields and Glasgow in March and April 2009, when we were able to help teachers and music leaders acquire the skills and confidence to teach and inspire pupils eager to learn improvisation. Led by Jazz icon Julian Joseph, with Tim Garland, Andrea Vicari, Neil Cowley and leading jazz educator Richard Michael, these workshops have both informed and inspired. Project patron, legendary jazz bassist Peter Ind, also contributed some inspiring video materials for the project, which were shown at each of the workshops.

The final phase of this unique project began in September 2009, when teachers started to work with their school ensembles with a view to entering them for the UK's national Yamaha jazz Experience competition. (Click on the link for competition details.)

Yamaha's music education manager Bill C Martin commented: "Our goal with the Jazz Experience has been to inspire teachers and young musicians alike. With a consensus in UK music education that we need to empower young people's personal creativity, I can't think think of a better or more exciting way to do this than by helping their teachers to develop their own improvising skills. With jazz still perceived as a hard-to-teach area of the music curriculum we know these workshops have encouraged teachers who were new to jazz and improvising to have a go. I have been partiularly impressed and pleased that so many of our workshop participants entered enselmbles for the competition, too!"

We are grateful for the moral support and advice given from our colleagues at the Federation of Music Services, National Association of Music Educators and the Music Education Council, in setting up this project.

We are also grateful to those organisations which helped with the initial workshops: Portsmouth Music Service, Access To Music, Birmingham Music Service, Birmingham Conservatoire, Chetham's School of Music, Leeds College of Music, Leeds ArtForms Music & Arts Service, South Tyneside Music Service, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Glasgow City Council.

A Jazz Experience Interim Report of the workshop phase of the project is availble, as are the competition rules and guidelines. Support materials for teachers and music leaders are available on registering (free) at Yamaha Education Friends.

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(Updated April 2010)