The first Lady Bay January Jamboree took place at the Poppy and Pint on Sunday 19 January to a sold-out audience, with two new community-based music groups playing a wide range of great music to an enthusiastic crowd.
Musical director Richard Coffey-Glover explained: “Tickets made available to family and friends of the groups sold out so quickly, that we weren’t able to advertise publicly! We’re looking at bigger venues for future gigs to ensure more people can come along and enjoy the music.”
“The two groups, Lady Bay Music Ensemble and LB Jazz|Funk|Soul were only established last year, from call outs on social media to see if anyone was interested in joining. Both groups have developed exceptionally in that time, as the hugely positive audience reception on Sunday showed.”
Both groups are open to everyone, whether it’s people who haven’t played music in a long time and want to rekindle their connection with their instrument, to people who have played instruments for a while and are looking for somewhere to play together with others or people who have recently started learning an instrument and are looking to develop their playing further.
Making music together has been proven through many studies to have enormous benefits on personal and social well-being,
and the musicians involved here have spoken about the positive impacts of playing together in the groups.
For Richard, these ensembles form part of a wider plan to support more music-making across the area, and in particular ensure young people have as much exposure and involvement in live music-making as possible. He hopes over time to have Lady Bay bursting at the seams with music! There is enormous latent potential for music-making in the community, and he is very keen to provide ways to prompt people to reconnect with music, or develop their newly-found passions.
Richard runs these two groups, as well as a guitar ensemble, with regular sessions in Lady Bay.
If you would like to find out more, please contact Richard at [email protected]