Some great news last week because the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund have generously supported our trip to Germany next week with an Ensembles and Groups Award which will cover our flights over there from Manchester – thanks very much! The MBF are currently running a fundraising campaign called ‘Musicians Give‘ to raise money so that they can continue their great work, not only funding projects like this but helping professional musicians at every stage in their career; from funding for postgraduate study, to support if they are unable to work at any time due to illness or injury, right through to help for elderly and retired musicians. Check out the campaign website for more details, and thanks again to the fund for their support of our trip next week.
Posted by on 14/03/2011 at 12:37 in b&p friends, news and tagged funding, germany, mbf, musicians benevolent fund, musicians give. Leave comments here.
Thanks to everyone for their comments and support for Manchester Jazz Festival – my post a couple of weeks ago is just one of many that have been springing up over the internet which is great to see! I think that shows just how important the festival is to so many people. Some of the ones I’ve picked up on are as follows:
- Efpi Records‘ very own Anton Hunter
- Saxophonist, promoter and all round nice guy Phil Meadows
- Sebastian Scotney of the amazing LondonJazz blog
- Various people on facebook including GoGo Penguin and the festival itself
If you’ve emailed in you’ll have had a personal response which just goes to show that the council are listening and will be taking this into account when drawing up the budget – if you haven’t contacted them yet do it now! The address to write to is budget.enquiry@manchester.gov.uk
Sebastian’s post on the LondonJazz blog not only demonstrates the importance the festival has on the whole country’s jazz scene, but featured this video which I’d forgotten about and that perfectly sums up everything that it means to musicians, punters and the city as whole.
Posted by on 28/02/2011 at 12:02 in b&p friends, news and tagged anton hunter, efpi records, gogo penguin, londonjazz, manchester, manchester jazz festival, phil meadows, sebastian scotney. Leave comments here.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there’s not much money going round the country at the moment, and councils are having to make pretty significant cuts… Manchester is no exception – last week the council published their proposed budget details which makes pretty grim reading.
The council is an important source of funding for the Manchester Jazz Festival and NWJazzworks, and they certainly won’t be immune from these cuts. However, its possible that the extent to which their funding is cut could be restricted if jazz musicians show their support for the organisation and demonstrate how valuable a resource it is – the festival is one of the leading commissioners of new music (especially now through its mjf originals scheme; congratulations to Adam Fairhall by the way!), and a big part of its programming policy is designed to support musicians living and/or working in the North West. Even for the 11 non-festival months of the year, NWJazzworks does sterling work promoting events, raising awareness of musicians and their activities, as well as helping us out with funding applications and career development. I know that Beats & Pieces certainly wouldn’t be at the stage we’re at without support from Steve, Mick and the team!
You can register your support by emailing budget.enquiry@manchester.gov.uk – you may be doubtful that just writing a quick email can make a difference, but Birmingham Jazz was recently in a similar situation and managed to avoid the worst case scenario, partly due to public support and pressure. Manchester jazz needs you!
Posted by on 15/02/2011 at 15:28 in b&p friends, news and tagged festival, funding, help, jazz, manchester, mjf, nwjazzworks. Leave comments here.
Just posted some exciting news over on the Efpi website… HAQ (featuring Beats & Pieces members Anton Hunter, Sam Andreae and Finlay Panter alongside Eero Tikkanen who also guest appeared with Beats & Pieces’ one-off Finnish iteration in 2009) are releasing their brand new album, ‘Walking Walking Falling‘ on Efpi on February 21st. They’ll also be embarking on a 7 date tour over February and the beginning of March, supported by Jazz Services’ Touring Support scheme. I’ve been mixing and producing the album with the guys and I can tell you that it sounds great… Check the Efpi site from next Monday (14th) for an exclusive preview track!
Posted by on 07/02/2011 at 17:39 in b&p friends, news and tagged anton hunter, eero tikkanen, efpi, efpi records, finlay panter, haq, sam andreae, walking walking falling. Leave comments here.
It gives me enormous pleasure to present to you the third (and final… for now!) in the series of Beats & Pieces remixes, and its one I’ve been looking forward to sharing since it arrived in my inbox a few weeks ago. Rodrigo Constanzo has completely reworked ‘broken’ and it sounds awesome, a fitting end to three weeks of exciting remixes – hope you’ve enjoyed them as much as we have! If you missed the previous weeks’ remixes you can download them all in a single zip file here.
As with the other remixes, its been made available to download for free, but if you enjoy it we’d appreciate it if you considered making a donation to support our work by clicking the big yellow ‘Donate’ button on the right hand side of the Efpi site – ta!
Posted by on 28/07/2010 at 11:08 in b&p friends, news and tagged broken, download, efpi, ep, remix, rodrigo constanzo. Leave comments here.
The second in the series of Beats & Pieces remixes is now available to download over on the Efpi website; this week its ‘bake’ that’s been reworked by Dileu (aka Owain Roberts, aka Messner). Many will know that Owain also plays trombone on the EP, so its been really interesting to hear what he’s done with the track!
Again its been made available for you to download for free, but if you enjoy it please consider making a donation to support out work by clicking the big yellow ‘Donate’ button on the right hand side of the Efpi site – ta!
Posted by on 21/07/2010 at 11:54 in b&p friends, news and tagged bake, dileu, download, efpi, ep, messner, owain roberts, remix. Leave comments here.
In the run up to our gig at the Manchester Jazz Festival on Saturday July 31st, and to celebrate both the end of our first UK tour and the 2nd anniversary of our first ever gig at the 2008 festival, we invited some close friends of Efpi to have a go at remixing some of the EP tracks. We’re chuffed with how they’ve turned out, its really exciting for us and we can’t wait for you to hear them!
The first remix (of ‘broken’ by Tullis Rennie) is available to download over at the Efpi Records site, and another remix will be made available each week until the mjf gig. As always, we’ve made the music available for free but if you enjoy it please consider making a donation to support both Beats & Pieces and the Efpi label – there’s a big yellow ‘Donate’ button at the side of every page on the Efpi site.
Thanks again to all the guys for their efforts in remixing, its been a really exciting process!
Go download! Let us know what you think…
Posted by on 13/07/2010 at 23:31 in b&p friends, news and tagged download, efpi, ep, remix. Leave comments here.
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