The Jazz Ensemble meets every Tuesday from 5pm - 7pm in the Music Recital Hall (Hel 029) during teaching weeks. There are no stylistic boundaries, and we run the workshop concentrating both in improvisation and ensemble playing to support a number of extremely varied student-led projects, rather than just the traditional 'big band' format. These have included piano trios, funk/fusion guitar bands, ECM-inspired groups, Art-Pop-Jazz, Hard Bop horn-based septets, vocalists, Free Jazz, and so on. The ensembles are determined by the composition of the group and the students' imagination and interests in organising a particular genre.  

Apart from the student-led concerts held in Festival week in the Mumford Theatre and the Recital room, the ensemble is also taken every week after the ensemble practice to a local jam session at a pub adjoining the Cambridge Campus, and encouraged (all right, forced, actually...) to prepare and take part, learning from these attempts and using them as an opportunity to review their repertoire, stagecraft and level of musicianship. By the second and third year, most of the more serious ensembles are out performing around Cambridge, both in their own ARU-based ensembles and with local musicians.

For further information, please contact Dr Kevin Flanagan.