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Serious announces participants of the sixteenth Take Five Talent Development Programme.

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Promoters Serious have announced the names of the young musicians who will be part of the 2021 Take Five programme. They will also be featured at this year's EFG London Jazz Festival.

We have received the following press release;


Take Five Talent Development Programme - New Artists Announced plus EFG London Jazz Festival showcases

 

SERIOUS ANNOUNCES PARTICIPANTS OF SIXTEENTH EDITION OF TAKE FIVE PROGRAMME


Live music producers Serious are proud to announce the accomplishment of the sixteenth edition of their prestigious talent development scheme Take Five – an annual programme that offers mentorship and opportunities to eight of the finest emerging jazz and improvising musicians from across the United Kingdom, funded by the PRS Foundation, Help Musicians, Arts Council England and Serious Trust.


This year’s eight participants are an eclectic and exciting group, demonstrating the variety and quite literally the beating heart of the UK’s flourishing jazz scene, offering a taste of what is to come from the genre in the coming years. They are:


Jas Kayser (Drums)


Lara Jones (Saxophone, Electronics, Piano)


Romarna Campbell (Drums)


Jamie Thompson (Composer, Producer)


Sarah Heneghan (Drums)


Mark Kavuma (Trumpet, Piano)


Nathaniel Cross (Trombone)


Johnny Hunter (Drums)


In August, the participants took part in the online residency with 25 hours of facilitation, featuring talks, discussions, and breakout sessions with 25 leading industry experts over a week. This part of the scheme gave them a chance to learn about the complexities of the business in a focussed setting and offered them the chance to take some time out from their usual busy schedules and step back and think about how to advance their music and careers. For the second half of the programme (Sun 5 – Thu 8 Sept), the participants had the chance to meet in person at the beautiful setting of Cats Abbey, to collaborate on a series of pieces that each of them arranged for the entire group, directed by the esteemed composer and saxophonist Jason Yarde, culminating in a video recording of their works which will be released as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival’s digital programme in November.

 

Take Five presents live at the Southbank Centre


Take Five presents two special concerts this November as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival:


Take Five presents: Improvisational Soundscapes
J Frisco, John Pope and Samuel Eagles
Saturday 20 November, 3pm, Purcell Room
Featuring performances from Take Five participants, J Frisco, John Pope and Samuel Eagles in genre crossing improvisations and soundscapes.


Take Five presents: Beat Connections
Romarna Campbell, Sarah Heneghan, Johnny Hunter
Saturday 20 November, 7.45pm, Purcell Room
Showcasing the current Take Five cohort, with an all drummer line-up of Romarna Campbell, Sarah Heneghan and Johnny Hunter, exploring new horizons in jazz with wide ranging influences.


Additional performances featuring this year’s Take Five participants in the Festival include:


Wednesday 17 November / Toulouse Lautrec: Women in Jazz Media and Black Lives in Music present: Jas Kayser, Daniel Higham and Jay Phelps


Saturday 20 November / Ninety One Livingroom: Rachael Cohen & Mark Kavuma Quintet


Sunday 21 November / Ninety One Livingroom: Mark Kavuma’s The Banger Factory


Sunday 21 November / Toulouse Lautrec: Improvisation workshop with Charlotte Keeffe and Lara Jones


As well as over fifty further performances from Serious’ Take Five alumni across the festival.

For more information about the artists, you’ll find their biographies below and on Serious’ website here.
https://serious.org.uk/what-we-do/talent-development?category=474991

 

To listen to each of the artists’ music, check out this YouTube playlist here.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVysr8RrgbqF20GWNin8ysakwcg3jD8PU

 

The Take Five initiative is aimed at British and UK based composer-performers and is designed to give some of the UK’s most talented emerging creative jazz and improvising musicians the opportunity to take time out to develop their craft, build their careers and get their music out into the world.


Going back sixteen years, the programme has brought through the likes of Seb Rochford, Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed and Nubya Garcia, as well as musicians from outside the traditional jazz idiom but with a foot firmly in improvisation such as electronic musician Leafcutter John, and taegŭm (Korean flute) player Hyelim Kim – serving as a pivotal moment in their careers that led to wider recognition, touring, record deals, and more.


Other aspects of the scheme, such as mentorship, funding and marketing support, creates further opportunities for the artists to reach a wider audience and gain a greater foothold in the rapidly evolving music industry.


To find out more about Take Five, please visit our website here.

BIOGRAPHIES:

 

JAS KAYSER
Drums
https://www.jaskayserdrums.com 
Jas Kayser is 25-year-old drummer, composer, band leader and Paiste Cymbals and Natal Drums artist from the UK. She is currently based in London and was previously based in Panama and Boston. 
Jas’s most recent release is her sultry new Debut EP Unforced Rhythm of Grace, available now on all platforms. This release has gained attention and support from London’s impressive jazz scene such as Jamie Cullum, BBC 3, Jazz FM, Mary Anne Hobbs and Jazzwise. 
Jas completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Berklee College of Music whilst studying and playing alongside mentors such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Danilo Perez, Ralph Peterson and Neal Smith. During this time Jas began to explore the common grounds between Jazz and Afro-beat, which has led to her creating her original sound and compositions. 
Jas currently drums for Jorja Smith, Alfa Mist and Poppy Ajudha and has featured in bands with leading British lights Nubya Garcia, Ashley Henry as well as American drummer Ralph Peterson’s Big Band and had a starring role on drums alongside Lenny Kravitz in the official video for his song Low.
Jas has also presented her original band at Jazz Re:Fest 2020 Online, London Jazz Festival 2019, RISE concert in Boston supporting Terri Lyne Carrington and Panama Jazz Festival for the past 2 years. 
Additionally, she has also played with various bands and artists like Jacques Schwartz-Bart, Donald Harrison in the Ralph Peterson Big Band and Luciana Souza at venues around the US such as Scullers Jazz Club, Rockwood Music Hall and Newport Jazz Festival, among others.

 


 

LARA JONES
Saxophone, Electronics, Piano
http://www.larajonesmusic.com 
Lara Jones is an award-winning saxophonist, improviser, producer, composer & collaborator. She is a member of avant-garde trio J Frisco, and is currently the recipient of Help Musician’s UK’s Peter Whittingham Jazz Award and Jerwood Arts Jazz Encounter Fellowship. 
Lara contrasts high energy pulsating electronics and mediative dream-like soundscapes, with solo saxophone & software Abelton; using live processing and field recordings to build structures and stories in her work. 
Highlights to date include selection for Manchester Jazz Festival’s Hothouse Programme, which commissioned her to write a new series of audio-visual based works for saxophone & electronics. She’s using the fellowship from Jerwood Arts, in collaboration with Cheltenham Jazz Festival, to develop this work into an immersive installation in a geodesic dome which will be hosted by Manchester Jazz Festival in a train station. She released her debut solo album ‘Ensō’ in April 2020, which was featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Freeness’ and in ‘Jazzwise’ magazine. 
Performance highlights include Vortex Jazz Club, London Jazz Festival- King’s Place, ‘Jazz in the Round’, a solo saxophone and electronics show at Cafe Oto and notable concerts as co-director of the Northern Contemporary Collective (a versatile ensemble of musicians, artists and dancers that utilise unusual spaces, improvisation, cross art forms and deliver educational workshops) at Sounds Like THIS Festival, Leeds. In her career to date, she has supported artists including Courtney Pine, Novelist, Roller Trio, Portico Quartet, Matthew Bourne, Elliot Galvin, Laura Jurd, collaborated with Archipelago & Shiva Feshareki as a part of Brighter Sounds- Both Sides Now Residency, and performed around Europe at events including Sofar Sounds, London Jazz Festival, Gateshead International Jazz Festival and Tubax International Festival in Munich.

 

 

ROMARNA CAMPBELL
Drums
https://www.romarnacampbell.com 
Romarna is a drummer, composer and producer with a hip-hop and jazz influence, from Birmingham. She studied at Berklee College of Music and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Having just released her 25th Birthday project, she is now working on her debut EP.
Romarna performed worldwide with Billy Childs, Courtney Pine, Ephemerals, Ralph Peterson’s GenNext Big Band, Gary Crosby, Denys Baptiste, Mark Kavuma and Benet Mclean, playing Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue for BBC Radio 3. Under her name, recent features include a virtual-performances for Jazz Re:Freshed, amassing nearly 4000 views, and Berklee College of Music’s #BerkleeAnywhere with over 12,000 views across platforms. 
Romarna’s latest independently released project is a collection of 25 songs that she wrote, arranged, performed and produced remotely during the lockdown in approximately three months. She collaborated with many distinguished musicians, including Soweto Kinch, Tomeka Reid, Sumi Tonooka, and Lady Sanity. Song #1 (Drum Melody) was produced as part of a joint commission by Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (M3) with Val Jeanty, premiered at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. 
The music charity responsible for THSH commissioned ‘Inherently Political’, a musical response to racism, individual and systematic. It was debuted on Midmornings with Anne Frankenstein and Folded Space with Tony Minvielle on Jazz FM, on Selector Radio with Jamz Supernova as New Name of the Week, and by the British Council. 
Through studying at Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Berklee Global Jazz Institute, Tomorrow’s Warriors, the Notebender’s Community Big Band and Town Hall Symphony Hall, she counts Gary Crosby, Terri Lyne Carrington, Ralph Peterson, Neal Smith and Billy Kilson as just a few of her mentors.

 

JAMIE THOMPSON
Composer, Producer
https://www.jamesjoys.com
Jamie works under the pseudonym James Joys. He is a composer and producer who quarries the seams between electroacoustic, classical, electronica, and errant-pop. He has scored works for choir and electronics, produced avant-garde electronica, kaleidoscopic techno, performed and recorded improvised sampler-collage with Gwilly and Freya Edmondez, written, arranged and produced two albums of avant-pop for his band Ex-Isles, and composed and performed modernist song for a modern ballet/opera called A Different Wolf for Cork Midsummer Festival in collaboration with Brian Irvine.
Based in Belfast, after studying and teaching music in Newcastle upon Tyne and Bristol for fifteen years, he released a collection of “electroacoustic rave entropy” called Super_Tidal in October 2018. Exploring ideas of occurrence and withdrawal, turbulence and suspension; sediment and plastic, this experimental electronic work is heavily influenced by painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. Jamie’s choral and electronics work of modern lamentations, A Constellation Of Bargained Parts, co-written with Pete Devlin arrived on March 1st 2019, performed by Derry’s Codetta, and was followed by the unstable technicolour electronica of Fugitive Wound and acidic deep cut KINK.
Jamie is currently working on Sovereign Bodies / Ritual Taxonomy, an experimental project at the intersections of opera, turntablism, open/graphic scoring, improvisation, and electronics, using texts taken from the UK Home Office’s sprawling border infrastructure and private contractors. Supported by Dumbworld and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Artist Career Enhancement Award, the project sees him collaborate with an opera singer, an experimental turntablist, an ensemble of improvising musicians, and refugees and immigrants in Ireland. He is also working on an album for experimental jazz ensemble in collaboration with spoken word poet Felicia Olusanya, Elliot Galvin, Catherine Sikora-Mingus, John Pope, Shane Latimer, and various other musicians recording remotely throughout the UK and Ireland. 

 

SARAH HENEGHAN
Drums
https://powerout.bandcamp.com 
Sarah is a performer, teacher and co-writer in several projects. Her debut solo project Power Out, started in 2019, is a performance that explores live drums and electronics, supported by Manchester Jazz Festival’s (MJZ) Hothouse programme (2019-present) and Sage Gateshead’s Summer Studios residency in 2020. She performed the project at MJF 2020, No Bounds Festival 2020 and Sage Sessions 2020. Sarah is also one of the MJF originals commissions 2021 artist with Power Out, collaborating with a dancer and a lighting set designer. 
Sarah was on the 2019-20 Northern Line roster and completed a Sage Gateshead Summer Studios residency in 2019. She released an EP and 2 singles, with one played on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Freeness’, performed at Lancaster Jazz Festival ‘18 and ‘19, Marsden Jazz Festival ‘19, and Liverpool International Jazz Festival ‘20. Sarah also drummed and co-composed for electro-jazz quartet Beyond Albedo between 2017-2021. 
Sarah co-ran, co-composed and drummed in 8-piece fusion outfit, Forefathers, between 2015 -2018. She played Hootenanny’s in London, Y Not Festival and supported The Mouse Outfit and Hot 8 Brass Band. She released an EP and a single, ran DIY music night Backyard Sessions (‘15-‘18), samba bands, and workshops for the University of Sheffield, University of Huddersfield and Sheffield Music Hub. 
Sarah spoke on a panel discussing gender equality in music for OneFest curated by Shabaka Hutchings and at Sound & Music’s Fair Access Principles event as a queer and Deaf artist. She received mentoring training through MJF hothouse to mentor artists on Soundcheck ‘21 programme plus artists on Sheffield Hubfest Momentum ‘21. She trained as a coach to develop as facilitator for other emerging musicians, participated in Jazz North’s Action Learning Sets with other Northern Line artists, providing mutual support over 12 weeks. 

 

MARK KAVUMA
Trumpet, Piano
http://markkavuma.uk 
Over the last decade Mark Kavuma has established himself as a key player in London’s rapidly expanding jazz Scene. As leader, he has released two albums, ‘Kavuma’ (2018), voted among the best albums of the year by Downbeat magazine and The Banger Factory (2019), both released with UK record label Ubuntu Music. Currently Mark is working on setting up ‘The Banger Factory’ record label which is set to launch in the Autumn with their first release: Kavuma and The Banger Factory -Arashi No Ato. 
Firmly rooted in the hard bop tradition, Mark infuses this indelible musical movement with the energy, attitude and swagger of a new generation of creators. Musically, he has a unique and distinctive sound on the trumpet and an assured, finely crafted and personal approach to the instrument. 
Hints of gospel music, soul, and spiritual Jazz sit alongside Hard Bop within his compositions and the prominence of Hammond Organ on his second album references Mark’s love of church music. A gifted educator and inspirational creative enabler, Mark is an associate Music Leader for the Tomorrow’s Warriors programme, and is also involved in their professional performance ensembles including the acclaimed Nu Civilisation Orchestra, Jazz Jamaica Small band and Jazz Jamaica All Stars. He is also a brass tutor and leader at London based carnival band Kinetika Bloco.
Starting his professional career in his late teens, earlier career highlights include being featured twice with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, touring Europe with the legendary Salif Keita and Less Ambassadeurs and touring the world in Peter Brooke’s Production of ‘The Suit’. 
He has recently completed a debut piano album and is also working on the Kinetika Bloco- All stars album featuring a host of London’s burgeoning new jazz generation including Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Femi Koleose, Ruben Fox, Sheila Maurice Grey and Reuben James which will be released on The Banger Factory record Label early 2022.

 

 

NATHANIEL CROSS
Trombone
https://nathanielcross.bandcamp.com 
Nathaniel Cross is a trombonist, arranger and composer. He graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama and received a Bachelor of Music (Hons). He has played and arranged professionally on many different genres of music and has worked and recorded with a wide range of artists and bands, including Solange Knowles, Macy Gray, Emile Sande, Kano, Stormzy, Courtney Pine, Swindle, Tom Grennan, BBC Concert Orchestra, China Moses, Mighty Sparrow, David Rudder, Jazz Jamaica, David Murray, Robin Eubanks, Bennie Maupin, Soweto Kinch, Abram Wilson, Moses Boyd, Zara McFarlane, Dan Zanes, Brixton Chamber Orchestra and the Southbank Sinfonia. 
Nathaniel has played internationally in major music festivals including North Sea Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Jazz a Villete Festival, WOMAD, Bestival, Glastonbury and South By Southwest. 
Nathaniel has also performed on television shows with various artists on programmes such as Later…with Jools Holland and the Mercury Prize Awards. He has also been casted as an extra on programmes such as Murder on the Home Front (ITV), The Halcyon (ITV), The Crown (Netflix), Succession (HBO) (Netflix) and the Disney film Dumbo.


 

 

JOHNNY HUNTER
Drums
http://www.johnnyhuntermusic.com/ 
Johnny is a drummer, composer and bandleader from Manchester, named as “artist to watch in 2017” by Jazzwise. He was featured at Ronnie Scott’s, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Manchester Jazz Festival, Kings Place. He regularly tours Europe as part of the Anglo-Swiss collaboration, MoonMot. He also toured and recorded with, among others, Nat Birchall, Olie Brice, Dee Byrne, Adam Fairhall, Kim Macari, Corey Mwamba, Cath Roberts, Nishla Smith.
Johnny’s focus is on composing for improvisers; to make the most of their skills in interpreting the music whilst retaining a strong compositional identity. He developed techniques with his group, “Fragments”, with their album described as an “imaginatively detailed and uncompromising diary of a virtuosic improv group” by John Fordham. He also applied his methods in other ensembles: Pale Blue Dot, premiered 2016 with En Bas String Quartet at NQ Jazz; Backlash (2017) suite for piccolo, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, accordion, percussion; Now It Can Be Told (2018) showcasing his Post-Rock influences, exploring electronics in jazz; Composition for Large Ensemble (2019) featured on BBC Radio 3 following successful participation in Sound and Music’s 2018 New Voices.
Outside of his own work, he has contributed to testing an online system with almost zero latency with Sloth Racket; taught at Sheffield Jazz Workshop for several years, providing online resources for his group during lockdown; worked as a promoter, running the Sheffield Noise Upstairs, Brilliant Corners Jazz Club and various jam sessions; founded Northern Contemporary, a label specialising in improvised music, attracting the attention of The Wire and Jazzwise, and receiving several plays on BBC Radio.