Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra head to Montreal

Manchester's Matthew Halsall and his Gondwana Orchestra are representing jazz in the North and in fact in the UK as a whole as one of the few UK artists featured in this year's Montreal Jazz Festival.

Running from June 29th until July 9, this is one of the world's leading jazz festivals and artists from across the globe peform on a number of stages. The Gondwana Orchestra will perform on the TD stage on June 30th at 6pm. Another Manchester artist, blues guitarist Matt Schofield will also perform.

Halsall is widely considered to be at the cutting edge of Jazz in the UK and is regularly nominated for awards (including JazzFM's UK Jazz act of the year and Gilles Peterson's Album of the Year to name two recent ones...)

To find out more about Matthew and his music, visit his website. For full details on the programme, visit the Montreal Jazz Festival site.

Leeds Musicians head to Montreal

Recently we published an article about the Montreal Jazz Festival and their BBC Introducing scheme. Jamie Cullum was leading the charge to select artists to be featured at this international festival. The three acts that were chosen have now been announced and Leeds will be well represented by singer/songwriter Malaika Shaw.

Ireland-born and now Leeds based, Malaika will appear with her group featuring LCoM alumni Jack Chandler, Dan Hudson and Leon Johnson. Also chosen to take part in the scheme were Mammal Hands (featuring Nick Smart, Jesse Barrett and Jordan Smart) and the Peter Edwards trio featuring Moses Boyd and Max Luthert.

You can find out more about Malaika through her facebook page and youtube channel.

Congratulations to all artists selected and we wish them good luck in Montreal!