Over the school summer holidays, despite the challenges posed by the Coronavirus we were able to provide valuable learning opportunities to our young participants. These opportunities were made possible thanks to our Tomorrow’s Warriors donors and supporters, who enabled us to adapt our physical summer school into an exciting and innovative online offering.
In July, 9 of our young Warriors attended the 4-week summer programme hosted online this year by our partners in New Jersey, Jazz House Kids run by Melissa Walker and Christian McBride Thanks to your kind donations, we were able to secure partial scholarships for each of our students, although the cost remained prohibitive for some, so wewere able to remove the financial barrier completely, by awarding 100% cash bursaries to 5 of our talented young people to attend virtually.
In August, your incredible support ensured 160 young people were able to attend our 12-day Summer Runnings programme which, with ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, was delivered entirely online this year. A massive 46 Music Leaders were employed in this epic virtual summer school, delivering 40 workshops (almost double the 24 sessions we delivered in 2019’s summer school!) resulting in an astonishing 543 learning opportunities! We also were able to reach musicians from all over the UK and indeed the world (with our Jazz House Kids exchange programme), with 43% of the participants experiencing Tomorrow’s Warriors for the first time.
Our young musicians benefited from a range of sessions, including instrument-specific masterclasses, essential skill-building workshops such as composition, intimate Q&As with some of the leaders of the current scene, and our alumni who came back to give back, including Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and several of our other illustrious Warriors, and informal Jazz Hangs to socialise and chat about jazz led by musicians in the scene.
Here is just some of the amazing feedback we received from Summer Runnings participants:
“A brilliant celebration of the TW ethos! I loved hearing from alumni as they’re all such an inspiration. Thanks so much for your hard work in putting Summer Runnings together.“
“Enjoyable. I appreciated having some sort of jazz education in the midst of the pandemic as otherwise I would have had very few if not any options to continue with my learning outside of what I could do myself.“
“I can’t wait to get back to the lessons and be able to carry on with my Jazz education! “
“It was a really chilled out and informative programme that allowed us to learn from such influential and inspiring musicians on the scene, sharing their experience, advice and stories. I really got a new viewpoint on jazz music and the jazz scene in general, which was eye opening and encouraging.“
TOMORROW'S WARRIORS 
2 thoughts on “Summer Runnings”