JAM on the Marsh launches fundraising campaign for community orchestra

Florence Lockheart
Wednesday, March 13, 2024

JAM is aiming to raise funds to support its newest community engagement initiative, the Festival Orchestra

The Festival Orchestra will bring amateur instrumentalists from the Romney Marsh community together with the London Mozart Players to learn, rehearse and perform (Image courtesy of JAM on the Marsh)
The Festival Orchestra will bring amateur instrumentalists from the Romney Marsh community together with the London Mozart Players to learn, rehearse and perform (Image courtesy of JAM on the Marsh)

JAM, the arts organisation behind Kent-based music festival JAM on the Marsh, is set to begin a new fundraising campaign raising money to support its latest community engagement initiative. Launching at this year’s festival, the Festival Orchestra will bring amateur instrumentalists from the Romney Marsh community together with the London Mozart Players (LMP) to learn, rehearse and perform at the festival this summer.

The idea builds on the success of last year’s community oratorio, which saw primary school children, the Canterbury Cathedral Choir, opera singers and a narrator join forces with a multi-generational orchestra of amateur players and professional musicians – again supplied by LMP – to perform The Sky Engine, a new commission by Richard Peat and Timothy Knapman. The call for amateur musicians to join the 2024 orchestra is now open, with local musicians of Grade 7 and above (or with orchestral experience) invited to register.

One community player described their experience performing at last year's festival as: ‘A fantastic, inspiring opportunity. I would love to learn and perform with LMP again. There’s nothing here otherwise.’

This year the now formalised Festival Orchestra will be guided by LMP in workshops, rehearsals and performances before presenting a programme including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending at the 2024 festival. To raise funds for the new initiative, JAM has partnered with Big Give’s Arts for Impact Campaign to raise £5,000 (£2,500 from the public, £2,500 from the Big Give) to launch and sustain the new orchestra.

The campaign will launch at JAM’s annual Music of our Time concert on 20 March at London’s St Bride's Church which will open the festival’s 2024 season with six premieres, including JAM commissions from Tarik O’Regan and Isabelle Ryder and eight pieces from the organisation’s annual Call for Music. The fundraising campaign will run until 26 March and donations can be made here.