A unique Sunday lunchtime concert in the 2025 EFG London Jazz Festival, with the Academy Jazz Orchestra, led by their Head of Jazz Programmes, ace trumpet maestro Professor Nick Smart, and featuring the Chief Conductor of the NDR Big Band from Hamburg Germany, Nikki Iles, under the direction of the leading British jazz music maker Pete Churchill.
The Academy Jazz Orchestra is proud to celebrate a new partnership between the Academy Jazz Department and the acclaimed NDR Big Band, marking the recent announcement of Academy professor Nikki Iles taking up the role of NDR Chief Conductor.
As well as being the first woman in this post, Nikki Iles continues a long line of collaboration between the NDR and some of the UK’s most celebrated jazz composers. This legacy includes genre defining and internationally revered writers such as Steve Gray, Mike Gibbs, Kenny Wheeler, Colin Towns, and more recent artists, all visiting Jazz professors here at RAM - Julian Siegel, Mark Lockheart and Trish Clowes.
Pete Churchill has been working as a composer, pianist, singer and teacher for almost 30 years. After twenty years teaching at the Guildhall, Pete is now Professor of Jazz Composition at the Royal Academy of Music and Head of Jazz Voice at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire.
Whilst teaching regularly in Europe, Australia and the Far East (Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore), Pete is recognised here as being at the forefront of Jazz education – receiving the Parliamentary Award for Jazz Education in 2007 and nominated again in 2012 and 2017.
“We are the meeting point between the traditions of the past and the talent of the future, seeking out and supporting the musicians today whose music will move the world tomorrow” – Royal Academy of Music 2025
This concert celebrates the music that is a result of this long and fruitful relationship as well as some of Nikki’s more recent writing for the NDR Big Band
Tickets £30 -online and by phone
Student tickets £10 – book by phone 0203 798 9192
Online Tickets not yet on sale, please check back soon.
Join us for the 2025 EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL and as always we offer the most fantastic jazz concerts at Pizza Express Jazz Club Dean St, London.
EFG LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL 2025