In Summer 2022, we were absolutely delighted to receive a donation of tubas and euphoniums from Trevor James. We would like to say a HUGE thank you to Trevor James for offering this opportunity to the young people that we work with. Our young musicians have already benefitted from the generosity of Trevor James, who have donated instruments to NYJO before. Their flutes and baritone saxes have been particularly useful, allowing our players to try out new sounds and significantly expand their skillset. JO musician George Garford has been using one of our Baritones kindly donated by Trevor James, and said:
It’s been a great opportunity to revisit the bari – luckily I’ve been holding onto one of NYJO’s and it’s opened some doors gigs-wise! Likewise, I played my debut soprano sax gig on a NYJO horn back in January at Ronnie Scott’s no less! Access to the NYJO instruments is a massive privilege that I’m very grateful for.
George Garford, NYJO Musician
The tubas featured heavily in our work in Summer 2022… All of the local pupils from our NYJO Jazz Messengers Greenwich Schools’ Tour were invited to attend a big jam session at Woolwich Works on Monday 25 July. Here, they were offered the chance to jam with some NYJO musicians, take part in a taster session led by Byron Wallen, and, most excitingly of all, get their hands on one of our tubas! Young musicians, regardless of whether they were beginners or more experienced players, were able to experiment and explore with this large brass instrument. They had fun doing something unique and original, discovering ‘proper’ sounds that a tuba can make as well as experimenting with its weird and wonderful noises, to create a digital/live soundscape.
This project was led by the brilliant Andy Grappy. Andy is an experienced tuba player and educator. He has performed with, amongst others, the Mike Westbrook Big Band, Hermeto Pascoal, Jazz Warriors, Jazz Jamaica All Stars, Loose Tubes, Grand Union Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra, and Abdullah Ibrahim. Andy and the tubas then accompanied NYJO Learning to ‘We Out Here’ festival! This offered us the chance to deliver two further workshops to festival attendees alongside NYJX’s brilliant Bassist Fergus Quill. Keep an eye out to see where NYJO Learning’s tubas land next…
As a Learning department, we were hugely excited by the chance to promote such a unique and special instrument within our community. We’re very grateful to have the opportunity to continue challenging people’s pre-conceptions around what you can do with jazz music, and to expand the opportunities available to our community of musicians.
