Outspoken Jazz

Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth Street, London
Outspoken Jazz image
Ad
Event has ended
This event ended on Friday 7th of September 2018
Admission
£15 / £12 conc.
Venue Information
Cockpit Theatre
Gateforth Street , NW8 8EH
Nearest Tube/Rail Stations
Edgware Road (Bakerloo) 0.27 miles

Jazz & Spoken Word, recited without a voicebox.

Produced by Shout at Cancer
Presented by The Cockpit

Peter Edwards is a pianist, composer and musical director whose ‘guileless, soulful music…[is] full of emphatic chording, Latin grooves and romantic, cinematic themes’ (Guardian) . He is the 2015 Parliamentary Jazz Awards ‘Newcomer of the year’ and was among the nominees for the 2015 Jazz FM 'Breakthrough Artist' award. He works with acclaimed artists Mica Paris and Zara McFarlane, directs the Nu Civilisation Orchestra and is a 2017 New Music Biennial commissioned composer.

Laverne Williams is a Soprano Opera Singer who sang with Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Andrew Davis, Andre Previn, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Simon Rattle and Alan Curtis. She is originally from Oakland, USA and has always had an unconditional love and strong connection with Jazz.

The Repeat Beat Poet (London) and Bruce Sherfield (Paris) are both talented Poets and Spoken Word Artists.

Shout at Cancer is a newly founded charity dedicated to helping people rebuild their lives after laryngectomy – the surgical removal of the voice box, usually performed in patients with highly developed stages of throat cancer. The psychosocial impact of losing the voice is significant, affecting a person's professional and social life in a devastating way. It should be no surprise that patients often fall prey to social isolation and depression. A problem they face when they do go out, is the negative perception which is mostly based on a lack of public education around this topic.

The changes following treatment to the structures involved in phonation introduce substantial challenges for cancer patients and can be experienced in speech after laryngectomy, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy.
Regular exercise is important in controlling these structures and keeping them supple. It is however a difficult task to keep motivation up to practise; and to find psychosocial support at the same time.

Together with The Repeat Beat Poet and Bruce Sherfield we have developed workshops around Spoken Word to create a wide variety of exercises that are fun, interactive, maximize the intonation of the voice and help to express both emotionally distressing as enjoyable themes in life after the operation.

We have translated the outcome of our Spoken Word Workshops into a narrative of testimonials and poetry to explain the landscape of life after laryngectomy and engage with a broader audience. We have integrated the lyrics into an empowering selection of Jazz improvisations and our laryngectomy group will proudly recite them live on the day of the concert.

Tags: Music

User Reviews

There are no user reviews