Hi everybody,

Our young performers have been outdoing themselves during this most challenging of times. We do a virtual meetup where they are coached by professional mentors on individual work they are doing on their own playing in preparation for a time when they can all play together. These sessions take many forms with the most common being them sharing a transcription they are working on or a new tune. We are very proud of a group of young players from our band who formed an ensemble they called The Bowery Jazz Messengers and brought some musical sunshine to the homeless and the hungry attending the Bowery Mission. During warmer weather, many have been ‘busking’ on the streets of NYC and we share some videos of that. We have also been joined on the virtual platform by young musicians from Ireland and other states in the US outside New York. In the summer of 2020, the young musicians took part in the Limerick Jazz Festival by creating videos specially for the occasion – this featured kids from both Ireland and the US. More recently in January 2021 they performed for the Martin Luther Gala hosted by Connecticut’s Scribe’s Institute as part of Ireland’s Consul General being honored for the outreach to the African American Irish diaspora. We look forward to being able to play for you and your families as soon as it is safe to do so and we are excited for you to hear the fruits of their hard work in this past year.

Stay safe everybody, we miss you all!