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Jill Jarman

A jazz pianist and composer, Jill's career includes performance, writing, and conducting. Her jazz quartet, ‘Storm warning',was an important land mark in UK  jazz fusion, with performances and tours including the Jazz cafe, Hackney Empire, and the South Bank jazz festival. The album, spirit level, (Zinc records) reached number one in the DJ album chart.

Coming from both a classical and jazz background, Jill's compositions, whether for orchestra or ensemble, effortlessly merge musical boundaries. Opus 42 commissioned for an experimental string quartet [Arts council of England lottery grant] place a vocal quartet, jazz saxophone, fretless bass, and piano/keyboards with a string quartet, while the big band composition Tunisian images is scored additionaly for jazz violin.

Recent works include a contempory piece for orchestra soundwaves of light (2006), combining the physics of light emissions from stars with musical frequencies; an unaccompanied chamber choir work clouds (2007); a wind, brass, and percussion piece  shadows (2009); an orchestral tapestry informed by the molecular states of water, H2O (2010), and two commissions for the Addison Singers, The listening tree premiered in London 2006, and Voices of change premiered in 2008 with a feature on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Jill conducts and orchestrates much music for recording sessions including work with the Royal Philharmonic orchestra for events such as the Commonwealth Games, BAFTA premiered film The Troop, and a short Ballet Rise for BMG.

As current composer-in-residence at the Judd School Jill enjoys a creative relationship with young musicians and has written a book of children’s songs published by Music Discovery Network in America. Jill’s belief in music education continues with the creation and development of a series of workshops for choirs, and ongoing research into music-listening and music-making for young children. She gained a PhD by Composition at the University of Surrey in 2010.