Huge congratulations to Lancaster Jazz Festival headliners Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band who have won the 2023 Peter Whittingham Jazz Award. Find out more about this year’s winners: The 2023 Peter Whittingham Jazz Award: meet the awardees They’ve won £5,000 in financial support towards their work and one-to-one business advice from experienced music industry professionals. Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band are in great company, previous winners include some familiar faces from Lancaster Jazz Festival including Lara Jones, Tom Rideout, Skeltr,  Fergus McCreadie, Roller Trio and Led Bib. Run by Help M ..read more

Concord Youth Experience, The Digital Era The latest in our series of micro-commissions is a short film from Kai Chareunsy: Concord Youth Experience, The Digital Era. Watch Concord Youth Experience, The Digital Era – premiers 12pm, Wednesday 13th December. We caught up with Kai about this compelling insight into the digital lives of a group of young people in Birmingham. Can you tell us a bit about this micro-commission and how you approached it? This piece is really the work of all the young people involved, I have been wanting to facilitate a piece that is youth-led for a long time and when ..read more

We caught up with Lodder//Shooter about their micro-commission for Lancaster Jazz Festival: Lancastère Concrète. Watch Lancastère Concrète (premiers 12pm 29th November 2023). About Lodder//Shooter Lodder//Shooter’s longstanding collaboration began several years ago on the Leeds DIY music scene, beginning as a shared interest in improvisation, electronic music, and finding new ways to combine the two. Since the release of their EP ’There is a Giant Skeleton Inside of Me’ in 2020, they have continued to develop their artistic practice together as a duo. Their recent work features a collision of ..read more

We are excited to launch this years’ Open Call for all artists interested in playing at the 2024 Lancaster Jazz Festival. We program the majority of the festival through this call out and love working in this way and it’s especially exciting when projects that aren’t on our radar apply and blow us away! At Lancaster Jazz Festival we believe that the future of jazz is now and we take pride in promoting brilliant musicians from the broad church of contemporary jazz. We strive to promote a diverse programme from around the UK that includes new works, genre pushing acts, emerging artists and proj ..read more

We caught up with Andrew Woodhead about his micro-commission for Lancaster Jazz Festival: i am not a robot. In this piece, Andrew has taken the familiar experience of proving you are not a robot by completing a Captcha and elevated it into something creative and thought-provoking. You can play with this piece, creating your own compositions which you can then save and share with others (a very human thing to do). Check out i am not a robot over on Andrew’s website and keep reading for our interview with Andrew. Hi Andrew, how are you? What have you been up to since playing at Lancaster Jazz ..read more

Another great day at the Lancaster Jazz Festival! Go Kojak started the night with an excellent and very funky show to an appreciative crowd. “Go Kojak” – a stunning session from a quite-recently established North Lancs combo. Wow! This was something else, very-much funk-based jazz, the sort of sound we’re used to at this so-modern, ahead-of-the-game festival. Unpredictable and totally inspiring! Go Kojak were amazing! Wonderful to see such a varied and energetic programme. Romarna Campbell Trio became a duo, as sadly Mutale Chashi suffered an injury and wasn’t able to play. Feel better Muta ..read more

Day 2 of the Lancaster Jazz Festival, with great performaces from Engawa and Richard Jones Trio at Lancaster Priory, and school bands from across Lancaster at Kanteena. Some feedback from our audience at Lancaster Priory: “Really loved the piano & drum combination. It was refreshing and felt really new and exciting!” “Absolutely stupendous music, got me back in touch with everything that first attracted me to jazz.” And from the audience at Kanteena: “Tremendous atmosphere and such youthful exuberance and courage from the young performers.” “The quality of the young musicians was pheno ..read more

Lancaster Jazz Festival 2023 is well underway after a brilliant performace from Laura Cole, Lara Jones, Charlotte Keeffe, Faye MacCalman and Walt Shaw, with amazing projections from andrew martyn sugars. Some feedback from our audience: “A very stretching experience but that’s positive. Sometimes felt at the outer edge but that’s no bad thing. Full marks to the Festival for giving people the chance to listen & see this jazz.” “I loved the artists, they had such great energy. The sound in the room was good, the lightning was really atmospheric. I enjoyed the show, as well as the conversat ..read more

We are hosting our first Innovation Hub at this year’s festival in the Lecture Theatre at the Storey. There is a packed program in place for Saturday and we have 4 ‘open’ slots that can be booked for Sunday. We are looking for interesting and innovative ideas or new project tryouts or meet-up jams with musicians you might not normally be able to play with. Anything could fly. Get in touch at innovationhub@lancasterjazz.com if you would like to book one of the available slots. Friday 5.30 – John Pope – ‘Stepping Into the Stream’ Film Screening and Q&A Artist in Residence John Pope shares a ..read more

We checked in with some of the brilliant artists playing at this year’s festival. Don’t miss Engawa, Home/Lands, Laura Cole: Persuance, and balo & Luca Shaw. How’s your summer been, any highlights? Engawa Steve Hanley: It’s been great! Both Simeon and myself have been busy independently with various things, whilst at the same time getting our show ready for the concert on the 7/8. The final mixes for the album we recorded back in January are getting ready to be mastered too, which is really exciting! Home/Lands Alicia Gardener-Trejo: I began summer with a well-earned break to Barcelona wi ..read more