Jazz & Popular Music

For over 30 years the Company has played a leading role in the exciting creative world of jazz. Our annual Tina May Young Jazz Musician Award is recognised as one of the most prestigious in its field, as is our annual Lifetime Achievement Award. We also maintain a close relationship with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NYJO).

More recently, the Company has returned to its roots – when it was founded in 1500 the only music that existed was popular ! – by  partnering with some of the most important educational institutions in UK popular music : the BRIT School,  BIMM, and the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM). We make an annual award to a student of Music Direction in Musical Theatre, a genre which employs increasing numbers of musicians, composers, MDs and music technicians, with more and more conservatoires and music colleges offering courses in Musical Theatre. Our significant activity with these partners helps demonstrate that we are The Musicians’ Company, encompassing all genres of music, rather than focussing (as is sometime mistakenly assumed) solely on Western Classical Music.

The two dropdown pages which follow summarise all our activities in Jazz and Popular Music in one place, to make it easy for those meeting us for the first time to understand how much we contribute to these two important strands of our shared culture.