A double bill of two contrasting line-ups, mixing improvisation with acoustic instruments and electronic sounds and ambient textures.

Noisy Boiz
Electronic noise, harp, electric bass, and riffs! Noisy Boiz are Manon McCoy (balo/baleine/emergence) on harp/electronics, Ben Evans (Assembly Trio/Life Aquatic Band) on electric bass/electronics and Jez Matthews (whale detective/baleine) on Moog/electronics. Gently risk-taking music in which big riffs leap out of spontaneous and improvised electronic and acoustic conversations and beautiful organic textures. You may have caught Manon McCoy as part of Sheffield improvising harp/drums duo balo. Fast developing a reputation on the northern improvised music scene, she has performed at Lancaster Jazz Festival, Refujazz, and Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, where she shared the stage with acclaimed NYC vocalist/composer Amirtha Kidambi, also in bands and collaborations including Lili Holland-Fricke, Juliana Day, Mishra, Emergence, Pocket, Life Aquatic Band, Stuart McCallum.

Ben Evans plays and tours with two contrasting and vibrant bands also emerging from the Sheffield music scene, providing an exuberant and melodic pulse to contemporary jazz guitar trio Assembly Trio at venues including Matt & Phreds and Scarborough Jazz, and also with the wonderful Life Aquatic Band, with whom he has performed at venues across the country including The Leadmill, Sidney & Matilda, Sage Gateshead, and Live at Leeds.

whale detective with Nicola Farnon
whale detective are Jez Matthews (piano/electronics) and clarinet/sax player Hannah Brady. This new collaboration, with Nicola Farnon on cello, follows a recording of a series of improvised pieces due for release in the spring. The music layers the resonant sounds of the cello, clarinets and saxophones to create elegiac melodies alongside electronic textures and natural sounds, veering from the delicate and beautiful to the intense, and hinting at ancient seascapes and mysterious woodlands.

"The musical chemistry between Hannah and Jez is undeniable and, with the aid of atmospheric electronics, their improvisations mesmerise." Now Then Magazine

This is a new context in which to hear Nicola Farnon's phenomenal musicianship, a multi-instrumentalist bass player and vocalist who has lit up the Sheffield music scene over many years, as well as playing with jazz luminaries including Dave Newton, Digby Fairweather, Jim Mullen, Bruce Adams, Roy Williams, and Alan Barnes, and leading her own bands; she bring a positive and joyous energy to every occasion.

whale detective have played at venues including Hatch, Refujazz festival in Leeds in collaboration with fellow Sheffield improvisers balo (Manon McCoy and Will Shaw) as baleine, as well as supporting Swiss-UK jazz sextet Moonmot, Juxtavoices, another Sheffield legend saxophonist Mick Beck, and in numerous gigs over many years with the likes of Pete Lyons, Foxhat, Seth Bennett, Johnny Hunter, and Rosie Brown and many others.

Australian harpist, vocalist and composer Tara Minton (Björk, Tony Kofi) and a brilliant band including Hugh Pascal (trumpet), Ed Babar (bass), David Ingamells (drums) and Emilio Yáñez Ruíz (percussion) perform the poised yet dramatic music from a new suite inspired by her trip to México City in 2023. Music that dances with shadows through themes of desire, truth, self-expression, and fierce, defiant joy. Weaving together Latin American music traditions, language and mythology with contemporary jazz, beautifully expressive music fully of humanity. Have a listen!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgrzz_ij5p8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjG41m1mJoI

Internationally acclaimed harpist, vocalist and composer Tara Minton has sold out concerts across the UK and Europe, as well as in her home town of Melbourne, Australia. In 2018 she accompanied Björk on 'Later. with Jools Holland' and toured with her to headline Primavera Sounds in Barcelona. Tara has also collaborated with Miranda Mulholland, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, Tom Walker, SuRie, Tony Kofi, and Paul Lee. Joined for this gig by a vibrant and experienced hand-picked line-up bringing Tara's wonderful original music to life, this is certain to be a really special evening at The Lescar.

"There is a palpable joy in her harp-playing, and her singing, and how she combines them." - UK Jazz News

"Ethereal... and free-spirited" - Mojo

"Irresistibly seductive" - Jazzwise

"Puts the harp centre stage" - The Sunday Times

Solo sets from two like-minded artists from opposite ends of the country coming together for a double bill of cutting-edge music featuring solo instruments, live looping and electronic manipulation. Saxophonist Samuel Sharp and cellist Liz Hanks blur the lines between jazz, contemporary classical, folk and electronic music.

London-based saxophonist and composer Samuel Sharp will be performing music from 'Consequential', his second solo album recently released on Scottish label Blackford Hill. Playful, mellifluous and sometimes dizzying, he layers and weaves intriguing, soporific and occasionally slapstick patterns, with effects pedals. Samuel has worked with the likes of Hackney Colliery Band, Augustines, Hollie McNish, Philip Selway (Radiohead) and Beverley Knight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk6HedUFmm8

"One of the great sax innovators of our time" - Louder Than War

"Beautiful" - Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2

"I love the way he plays the saxophone" - Elizabeth Alker, BBC Radio 3

Performing music from her debut and acclaimed album 'Land', Liz Hanks is a Sheffield-based cellist, composer, and collaborator with a rich and varied career. A longtime cellist for Richard Hawley, Thea Gilmore, and Martin Simpson, she has recorded and toured with an array of artists, including Liam Gallagher, Pulp, Smokey Robinson, Cara Dillon, Paul Heaton, and Real World Records sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun. A beautiful mix of minimalism, folk, Indian classical music and improvisation her music is heavily rooted in her local landscape, weaving together cello, looped field recordings, and storytelling to transport audiences into the lost landscapes that inspired her work.

https://youtu.be/YLNaThEc1UM?si=-p7H3kB4s8nVFRHL

"Stunning" - Elizabeth Alker, BBC Radio 2

"An immersive album of depth and subtlety" - Folk Radio UK

"A beautiful meditative work" - Duncan Seaman, Yorkshire Post

Unique and compelling, a vibrant and unmissable gig.

Part of a brand new and wide-ranging event, Keystones Piano Festival, this is the first of 2 gigs presented by Jazz at The Lescar. 5 pianists over 2 nights, and a Steinway D Grand Piano in the atmospheric Samuel Worth Chapel.

In collaboration with the Samuel Worth Chapel, Music in the Round, and Sheffield University we're proud to present two of London's most intriguing pianists in a special piano and keyboard duo performance.

We're proud to present two of London's most intriguing pianists in a special piano and keyboard duo performance.

Professor of jazz piano and composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Bruno Heinen has worked with artists including Shabaka Hutchings, Eska, Julian Siegel, Denys Baptiste and Reem Kelani, with a compositional voice informed by his love of composers from Duke Ellington to Béla Bàrtok and from Wayne Shorter to György Ligeti.

https://youtu.be/rg3SGffVLlo?si=78hcKxY3Zw7Rwkbb

"Eclectic, eccentric and unobtrusively erudite" - The Guardian

Maria Chiara Argirò has been a central figure in the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds since she moved to London from Rome over a decade ago. A skilled pianist since childhood, she's collaborated with everyone from These New Puritans and Jono McCleery to Jamie Leeming alongside output with Moonfish. Maria will join us after supporting US legend Kamasi Washington during his April tour of Italy, and an appearance at Manchester Jazz Festival.

https://youtu.be/nDe5_CD8iHA?si=oSm0C9d1v0wWgaLe

Two distinct, innovative and complementary voices at the keyboard from the forefront of UK and European jazz and improvised music; contemporary yet approachable, they combine a simpatico melodic approach with subtle complexity and deeply felt grooves.

Part of a brand new and wide-ranging event, Keystones Piano Festival, 2 gigs featuring 5 pianists, and a Steinway D Grand Piano in the atmospheric Samuel Worth Chapel.

In collaboration with the Samuel Worth Chapel, Music in the Round, and Sheffield University we present a concert in three parts, with solo sets from two wonderful pianists, Robert Mitchell and Laura Cole, and Sheffield-based ambient improvising duo whale detective, featuring Hannah Brady on clarinets and Jez Matthews on piano.

Award-winning pianist pianist, keyboard player, composer, songwriter, festival curator, poet, and author Robert Mitchell dazzled us all in his recent sell-out performance at The Lescar with The Flame trio. We're delighted to welcome him back so quickly.

Robert has recorded 14 albums, published 3 poetry collections and participated in over 100 projects as a sideman, as well as performing in more than 40 countries. A brilliant pianist, composer and innovator, he is also festival creator and curator and a highly respected educator.

A leader of several acclaimed bands including TRUE THINK, Little Black Book, Epiphany3 and the Flame, he is also a piano Professor at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Mentor/Task Force Member at Black Lives In Music, YMM teacher, Steinway Artist and recently taught/returned to the Paris Conservatoire and Pole Sup.

This performance will comprise originals, covers, improv, left hand only, poetry, drone work, inside piano and more!

Here's some music, from a recent performance at the Verdict Jazz Club in Brighton: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1409099873362983

"Robert Mitchell is one of Britain's finest and most versatile pianist-composer-improvisors" The Wire Magazine

"There are two poems by Mr. Mitchell included in the liner notes, both of which show him to be a wonderfully thoughtful, articulate and probing poet of the highest order." Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG NYC

Leeds-based pianist, composer and writer Laura Cole is a thoughtful, creative presence on the UK music scene. A pianist, composer and writer, she has visited The Lescar previously with her wonderful dynamic octet Metamorphic, with whom she recorded three albums, as well as in bands led by Corey Mwamba, Martin Archer, and Johnny Hunter. Other collaborations include with Martin Archer/Julie Tippetts, Faye MacCalman, Lara Jones, Keith Jafrate's group Orfeo 5, Seth Bennett.

Laura's beautiful and very personal solo piano album 'Enough' was released on Sheffield label Discus in 2018, and a string quartet commission featuring her arrangements of saxophonist Ron Caines pieces - in conjunction with her solo piano arrangements of Caines' music is due for release on the Discus label in 2025.

For this performance she'll be presenting her original compositions mixing piano and poetry; fluid and resonant, intense and multi-layered.

"Cole ought to be celebrated as one of the greats of British improvised music after this release. Always fiercely true to herself and her conception" Seth Bennett

Here's some wonderful music by Laura, taken from a double bill gig with another great pianist Alexander Hawkins at Wakefield Jazz: https://youtu.be/nvSFp-37bKQ?si=9FzHMKqdfL9MEdSG&t=26

whale detective is the culmination of a 20+ year long collaboration between Jez Matthews (piano/electronics) and clarinet/sax player Hannah Brady. Together they've developed a shared understanding and language, enabling musical conversations to develop easily, layering improvisation with elegiac melodies, natural sounds like bird song, and electronic textures that veer from the delicate and beautiful to the intense.

Their first recording as a duo was released in 2022, listen here: https://whaledetective.bandcamp.com/album/whale-detective

They've played at venues including The Lescar, Hatch, and Refujazz festival in Leeds, as well as supporting Swiss-UK jazz sextet Moonmot, anti-choir Juxtavoices, and collaborating with harp/drums/electronics duo balo to form an improvising quartet, baleine.

"The musical chemistry between Hannah and Jez is undeniable and, with the aid of atmospheric electronics, their improvisations mesmerise." Now Then Magazine