Ireland represented at Jazz Promotion Network Conference Birmingham

Jazz Promotion Network's 2023 conference title is inspired by the name of the 1962 album by American trumpeter Freddie Hubbard – Here to Stay, and celebrates the resilience of jazz in all its forms and those who play, present and teach it.

The conference explores how we as promoters, agents, educators, producers, labels, venues, and musicians can work to maintain and grow the artform across the UK, Ireland and beyond.

The conference starts on October 31st with a welcome followed by the Keynote Address from Soweto Kinch – not to be missed!

This JPN conference is the most extensive to date and includes a brand new dimension – an exciting programme of showcase performances. The aim longer term is to grow this event into an annual gathering for the jazz sector and an opportunity for promoters from across the UK and beyond to see some of the most exciting new artists on the scene. This year is just the start!

With the support of our funders- Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council Wales, and Culture Ireland - Here to Stay bring syou performers from Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland.

This year's conference showcase performers include:

Seonaid Aitken Ensemble (Scotland)
Duski (Wales)
Marco Woolf (England)
Bianca Gannon (Ireland/Northern Ireland)
Collidescope (England)
Nathan Somevi Trio (Scotland)
and
AKU! (Scotland)

Special guest ensembles for the event are the Soweto Kinch Trio, Fergus McCreadie Trio, and Rachael Cohen Trio, and delegates will also hear the world premiere of a new commission by Birmingham's B:Music - BLACKSABBATHMODE, presented by BIGHEADMODE and Plumm.

Irish composer and performer Bianca Gannon was nominated by Moving On Music and chosen by the Jazz Promotion Network to represent Ireland at the event.

Bianca is an Irish interdisciplinary art music composer and improviser. Her spontaneous compositions are an authentic and unfiltered expression in real time. Improvised solo and simultaneously on piano + percussion, ethereal pulsating difference-tones emerge from a unique ensemble of metallophones and singing bowls. Otherworldly tunings create resonant waves of sound. Gongs punctuate pianistic grooves. Hockets, syncopations, extended techniques, and crunchy harmonies interject, disrupt and intensify. A cycle which informs Bianca Gannon's music is that gamelan music inspired early C20th French composition which inspired jazz which inspired gamelan. In bringing together and revealing parallels between seemingly disparate elements, Bianca is inspired by that which connects us.

A Contemporary Music Centre represented composer, Bianca has been awarded the King House Piano Commission, BAN BAM Award, Arts Co. Music Bursary Award, Pythia Prize and Percy Grainger Award. She is an Improvised Music Company 30/30 Artist (one of Ireland's outstanding improvisers) and was Artist in Residence with the City of Greater Dandenong. Bianca's work has been presented internationally by leading ensembles including Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, loadbang, Ensemble Offspring, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). She has toured her solo improv act across Australia, Europe and North America. Her debut improv album 'with // without' garnered a four star review in the Sydney Morning Herald, and was selected by Rhythms Magazine as "Best Instrumental Album 2020". A recipient of the Indonesian Arts and Culture Scholarship, Bianca has been engaged in a mutual exchange with Indonesia for over a decade. She has lived, worked and played across the archipelago, conducting DIY field research with custodians of endangered food-centric instruments and creating immersive multidisciplinary concert experiences.