The festival finale will be something very special this year. Ribble Valley Jazz and Blues are over the moon to welcome the award-winning pianist and composer Nikki Iles with her 18-piece Jazz Orchestra featuring a host of the UK's finest jazz musicians.

“Formidably creative.... The Heroine of British Jazz ...” - Dave Gelly, Observer.

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The festival finale will be something very special this year. Ribble Valley Jazz and Blues are over the moon to welcome the award-winning pianist and composer Nikki Iles with her 18-piece Jazz Orchestra featuring a host of the UK's finest jazz musicians.

“Pianist and composer Nikki Iles is national jazz treasure, a harmonically innovative composer and a piano improviser in the classic keyboard traditions of Bill Evans, John Taylor and Paul Bley” - John Fordham, Guardian.

“Formidably creative.... The Heroine of British Jazz ...” - Dave Gelly, Observer.

Nikki, winner of Best Pianist British Jazz Awards 2017, brings together commissions from over the years; new orchestrations of her own band tunes and new compositions, all played by the remarkable band she has assembled.

Recently she has been particularly busy - she was awarded the prestigious Ivors Academy Gold Badge and the Ivor Novello Award - winning the best large ensemble composition in 2021. Thorough lockdown, she won The Seattle jazz composition prize and was a recipient of both The British Jazz and Parliamentary Jazz Awards and in the Queens New Years Honours list 2022, a British Empire Medal for services to music. Her commissions include The London Sinfonietta, the UMO jazz orchestra in Helsinki and The National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Nikki is Professor of Jazz Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and Middlesex University as well as giving masterclasses around the world.

And here in the Ribble Valley the Orchestra will demonstrate the wonders that are Nikki’s original compositions and arrangements, together with great ensemble playing and evocative soloing. The depth and range of the exhilarating writing and arranging suggest it will be less like a debut, but more like seasoned hand and a distinctive voice, with the music bought to vivid life by a top-drawer band.

Line-Up:
Nikki Iles - Conductor, Piano, Accordion

Mike Walker - Guitar

Steve Watts - Bass

Ian Thomas - Drums

Saxophones

Andy Schofield - Alto, Soprano, Flute

Paul Jones - Alto, Flute

Julian Siegel - Tenor, Bass Clarinet

Tori Freestone - Tenor, Flute

Karen Sharp - Baritone, Tenor, Clarinet

Gareth Lochrane - Flute

Trumpets

Tom Walsh

Henry Lowther

James Copas TBC (Flying in from New York)

Nick Smart

Trombones

Gordon Campbell

Richard Henry

Ollie Martin

Harry Maund