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Following the huge success of July’s sold-out arts festival, JAM now presents a selection of performances and exhibitions to a wider audience online. Under the inspirational leadership of curator Nicholas Cleobury, this year was our most dynamic festival yet.
One month ago, we closed our 10th JAM on the Marsh festival, concluding two fantastic weeks celebrating extraordinary music, art and theatre, all performed by outstanding artists. From intimate concerts with world-class musicians such as classical guitarist Craig Ogden, tenor Nicky Spence and the Joe Stilgoe Trio, to the powerful 60-voice Delaware Choral Scholars bringing flavours of American choral music and the world premiere commissioned by JAM of a community oratorio with over 100 performers – this diverse festival offered engagement and enjoyment for all generations.
Local amateurs join professional musicians to shine a light on one of the most pressing issues of our time in Richard Peat and Timothy Knapman’s Community Oratorio, The Sky Engine. This commission brings a diverse group of musicians together, with all of them playing a meaningful and integral part in the performance: children from two Romney Marsh schools and community players will perform alongside the choristers of Canterbury Cathedral Choir, the London Mozart Players (LMP), opera singers Rebecca Afowny-Jones and Julian Close, actor Kudzanayi Chiwawa and conductor Michael Bawtree.
JAM on the Marsh takes a musical journey through Paris with three concerts celebrating some of the greatest French music of the 20th century on 8 July 2023.
In highlighting the multi-arts of JAM on the Marsh, this year’s festival includes four exhibitions by artists connected to Romney Marsh. Free to visit, on display every day throughout the festival, the exhibitions feature a variety of artforms, with nature as a prominent theme: from large-scale oil paintings of the Romney Marsh beaches, to pottery inspired by space and photographs taken of items reclaimed from the beaches to mixed media paintings.
Changeling Theatre has become a thrilling staple of JAM on the Marsh with its compelling, fun and irreverent performances becoming festival highlights for our audience. JAM is delighted to have come together with Changeling to commission the music for their 2023 tour from Kent-born composer, James Aburn.
With only a few weeks until JAM on the Marsh celebrates its 10th festival on 4-16 July 2023, JAM would like to introduce the new Festival Curator, Nicholas Cleobury. The esteemed conductor, Nicholas Cleobury, is the 6th Festival Curator of JAM on the Marsh and has been a friend and supporter of JAM for nearly 20 years, in which he has had significant influence on the renowned commissioning programme of JAM.
From 4-16 July our multi-arts festival returns to Kent’s atmospheric Romney Marsh with an array of concerts, exhibitions and performances. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, JAM on the Marsh invites audiences to engage with some of the biggest names in jazz, classical music, opera, theatre and the visual arts.