Guest With CSM Big Band

CSM Jazz Big Band

Formed in 1992 as a special project of the Cork School of Music and the Guinness Jazz Festival, the CSM Jazz Big Band is a twenty-two strong ensemble of five saxophones, five trumpets, four trombones, rhythm section, and vocalists. The Band plays a wide variety of traditional and modern jazz compositions created by such composers as Bill Holman, Maria Schneider, Oliver Nelson, and Bob Mintzer; and from the repertoire of the great big bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Buddy Rich et al; and increasingly from the pens of our own student composers and arrangers.

The young musicians, aged 16 to 25, are full-time students on the B.Mus, BAPM and M.A. degree courses at the School and have a wide experience of music-making ranging from symphony orchestra to small group work. Many have gone on from the Jazz Project to further study abroad and former members have become regulars with groups such as the RTE Concert Orchestra, Sid Lawrence Orchestra, Trinity College Big Band and NYJO – the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.