**Jean-Michel Blais is a pianist-composer-performer based in Montreal.**

Growing up in rural Quebec, Blais only started tickling on the family organ at age 9, before beginning to compose, attending piano lessons. He enjoyed playing in masses, weddings and funerals. Endowed with natural talent, he entered the Conservatoire de Musique de Trois-Rivières where he trained as a classical pianist.

Noticed by Toronto-based label Arts & Crafts, Blais launched his debut opus, Il, written after two years of daily improvisation, recorded with a Zoom H4n in his Mile-End apartment. The disc ranked among the Top 10 best albums in Time Magazine, which mentioned that his music breathes, invites to take a moment and recognize there's still plenty of beauty left in the world. The album collected more than 50 million plays worldwide, ranked fourteen times number one on classical Billboard (Canada) and appeared in the long list of the Polaris Music Prize.

In 2017, he performed at the Red Bull Music Academy in collaboration with Grammy-nominated electronic producer CFCF. This concert gave birth to Cascades, a collaborative EP, receiving particularly glowing reviews from the BBC (Radio 6) and Pitchfork, for whom the piano and electronics synchronized to exalted effect.

In 2019, he signed internationally with London-based record label Mercury KX (Universal / Decca) and launched Matthias & Maxime, the soundtrack of the eponymous film directed by Xavier Dolan. Critically acclaimed, Blais received an honorable gold record from the Cannes Soundtrack Award, for his work of remarkable quality, as well as the Iris for the best original music (Gala Québec Cinema).

In September 2021, Blais unveiled murmures, a new piece from an upcoming album titled aubades. For the first time, he wrote for chamber orchestra, affirming himself as an emerging composer.

This is an all ages event.

Grand Junction

Jean-Michel Blais 'Aubades' Tour

Jean-Michel Blais

Gigs

London

**The Swedish singer-songwriter brings her unique vocals and beautiful spirit-inspired melodies back to West London after a sold-out concert**

Based in the countryside north of Stockholm, **Fia Forsström** (known mononymously as Fia) is a spiritual singer-songwriter who with her inspirational lyrics and catchy melodies has a unique way of weaving music that empowers the listener to drop deeper into themselves and find their own medicine.

Since the release of her debut album “**Made of Stars**” (2016), Fia has been touring worldwide and continues to touch hearts wherever she goes. She has fast become one of the leading voices on the spiritual music scene after the release of her two albums ”**Legacy of Light**” (2017) and ”**Waterfall of Wisdom**” (2019). Since then, several EPs, singles and various collaborations have taken place, and this winter she enters the studio to create her fourth album.

10% of profits from this event will be donated towards Cool Earth, protecting rainforests and fighting the climate crisis.

This event is Supported by Medicine Festival.

All ages

Fia - Dancing Barefoot

**DMP & GREEN NOTE IN ASSOCIATION WITH MUSIC PEI PRESENT.**

**CATHERINE MACLELLAN, INN ECHO & SAM CARTER**

**Catherine Macellan**

Singer Songwriter Catherine MacLellan is, a JUNO award winner, East Coast Music Award Songwriter of the Year, the most awarded Music PEI Award recipient and has released 7 albums over the past 20 years while touring around the world. She makes her home in her beloved Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, and much of her music reflects the landscape of the island. Her music takes you through heartbreak, loss and the joy of life. Catherine is dedicated to the craft of songwriting, and her desire for connection is at the heart of her work.

**Inn Echo**

Inn Echo weave hundreds of years of traditional tunes with contemporary originals and arrangements that both soar and make you catch your breath simultaneously. With technical precision, their mastery of instruments, fiddle, viola, cello and guitar, is becoming the talk in the national and international folk music scene. From Music PEI awards to tours of Austria, Australia and Ireland, performances at Canada’s National Arts Centre to Australia’s premier folk festival Woodford, Inn Echo is bar none the traditional band to watch as they emerge as Prince Edwards Islands greatest Celtic fusion exports in years to come.

**Sam Carter**

Midlands-born guitarist and songwriter Sam Carter has earned a reputation for vivid, narrative-driven songwriting and captivating live performances. He is a highly-regarded instrumentalist, renowned by many as ‘the finest English-style fingerpicking guitarist of his generation’ (Jon Boden). Over the past fifteen years, Sam has toured the world, won a BBC Folk Award and made appearances on national TV, including a spellbinding performance on Later… with Jools Holland. Sam has recorded and performed with some of folk’s leading lights, including Richard Thompson, Eliza Carthy, Martin Simpson and Nancy Kerr.

This is an 18+ event.

Catherine Maclennan + Inn Echo + Sam Carter

In the Nick of Time

Sam Carter

Inn Echo

Catherine MacLellan

**Don your spookiest dancing gear for this unique All Hallow’s Eve celebration with the Ceilidh Liberation Front at Grand Junction!**

Something wicked this way comes… The Nest Collective have reached beyond the veil and summoned a new ceilidh event for you this autumn.

Dance between the otherworld and our own as you waltz around the beautiful nave of Grand Junction. Bewitch your friends with your scariest two step! Dosie-do and strip-the-willow as we raise our spirits with ghosts and ghouls.

**Open to dancers of all abilities (no experience necessary!)**

**The Ceilidh Liberation Front** is London’s most radical & colourful live band, subverting the lore of Ceilidh with their energetic folk dance regime. They breathe vigour and vitality into the traditional ceilidh, whilst honouring its roots and traditions.

“<i>Sweat-busting abandon, subverted dances and party tunes</i>” - **Time Out**

“<i>Taking the traditional ceilidh as its starting point, but ripping up the rule book, souping up the music and subverting the dance moves. No experience is necessary</i>” - **Londonist**

All ages.

Halloween Ceilidh

Ceilidh Liberation Front

**Sudanese singer Amira Kheir brings her enchanting North East African style fused with soulful Jazz to Grand Junction**

Hailed as “The Diva of the Sudanese Desert” by BBC World News and nominated as ‘Best Artist’ at the Songlines Music Award, Amira has been enchanting audiences around the world with her unique sound inspired by traditional music from her homeland Sudan, and explorative of jazz, soul, rock, desert blues and experimental music.

Amira has released 3 albums to great critical acclaim ‘View From Somewhere (2011), ‘Alsahraa’ (2014), and ‘Mystic Dance’ (2018), all co-released by her independent label Contro Cultura Music and legendary African Music label Sterns Music.

The evening is presented by Arts Canteen in collaboration with Grand Junction, as part of the London Jazz Festival.

**We recommend pre-booking tickets to guarantee entry. Booking on the door will result in an additional fee of £1.**

This is an all ages event.

Amira Kheir - London Jazz Festival

Munaya (Dream)

Amira Kheir

**Join us for an unforgettable evening of 1950s and 60s songs from The Egyptian Jazz Projekt as they return to W2 after a sold out concert last year**

See renowned jazz vocalist Ahmed Harfoush and his band, The Egyptian Jazz Projekt for a specially created concert for EFG London Jazz Festival. Through extraordinary jazz arrangements, they will revive some of the greatest Egyptian songs from the 1950s blended with songs from American composers of the same era.

The Projekt first hit the music scene in 2015; and has since performed on international stages such as Dubai Opera, Cairo Opera House, The Alexandria Library, Cannes, Melbourne, the Egyptian Art Academy in Rome, and the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room!

The evening is presented by Arts Canteen in collaboration with Grand Junction, as part of the London Jazz Festival.

**We recommend pre-booking tickets to guarantee entry. Booking on the door will result in an additional fee of £1.**

This is an all ages event.

The Egyptian Jazz Projekt - London Jazz Festival

Ahmed Harfoush

The Egyptian Jazz Projekt

**Sean Khan presents The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble with special guest The Pentangle’s Jacqui McShee plus Rosie Frater Taylor and Kindelan**

Saxophonist Sean Khan premieres his new project The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble (MJAFE) at the EFG London Jazz Festival at the Grand Junction, Paddington with very special guest The Pentangle’s Jacqui McShee and rising stars Rosie Frater Taylor and Kindelan.

The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble (MJAFE) brings together British Folk and Jazz musicians, established and emerging, to celebrate songs from the classic era of British folk music that includes Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, John Martyn and Pentangle.

The iconic Acid Jazz Records will be releasing the first The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble album in the Spring of 2024. As a taster they are releasing the first single from the album in October 2023 – Light Flight, a Pentangle track re-versioned by Jacqui McShee with an extra jazz flavour. Originally a hit single for Pentangle in 1969, it was the soundtrack to the BBC drama series Take Three Girls.

Sean Khan has been a presence on the London Jazz and dance scene since the 2000s. He initially worked with electronic artists 4Hero and Bugz in the Attic before building up an impressive catalogue of recorded music. He has worked with Azymuth, Marcos Valle, Hermeto Pascoal, Omar, Jim Mullen and Peter King amongst many others. His last album release on BBE Records Supreme Love – A Journey Through Coltrane was a tribute to his creative inspiration John Coltrane.

Guest singers on the album include:

Jacqui McShee is the singer and founder member of the legendary Pentangle whose jazz-flavoured folk sound has been a seminal influence for so many artists. Jacqui has a life-long love for jazz and the first album she bought was Porgy and Bess by Miles Davis. She learned to sing all the parts.

Rosie Frater Taylor is a London based singer/songwriter and guitarist who blurs the lines between jazz, folk, pop and soul. Her last album Bloom was nominated at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide awards and named as Jazz FM’s album of the week.

Kindelan is a singer/songwriter and guitarist who has emerged from the vibrant Leeds independent music scene and has just released her first jazz and folk influenced EP You Can Reach Me if You Try. She has been identified by BBC Music in York & North Yorkshire as an artist to watch in 2024.

This is an 16+ event

The Modern Jazz and Folk Ensemble + special guests

Sean Khan

Jacqui McShee

Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle

Rosie Frater-Taylor

**This December, the award-winning folk group The Furrow Collective comes to West London with a special festive programme for the launch of their fourth album, We Know by the Moon**

Critically acclaimed, award-winning English/Scottish folk group The Furrow Collective are heading out on tour in the UK in December 2023, in support of their fourth full-length album We Know by the Moon on Hudson Records.

Usually a quartet, they will tour as a trio due to the happy news that Rachel is expecting a baby at the end of November. The three talented musicians joining us are Lucy Farrell (viola, voice & saw), Emily Portman (banjo, concertina, voice) and Alasdair Roberts (guitars, voice).

Each of the group’s three previous albums has marked a distinct development of their music, whilst retaining its idiosyncratic core of resonant bowed and plucked strings anchoring sky-bound harmony singing; the fourth will mark a further expansion of this unique trademark sound.

Recorded in midsummer 2023 and due for release in winter 2023, the record will span the seasons to link the solstices in harmony, in the form of a suite of noctilucent laments, lunar serenades and starlit balladry.

Enjoy an evening of story-songs and seasonal carols, as the trio present their signature spine-tingling harmonies and masterful storytelling to bring you joy during the cold wintry months.

‘A bravely sparse and compelling new take on traditional songs… A quietly classy young folk band’ Guardian

‘The Furrow Collective have an air of immeasurable antiquity, while at the same time making the songs vibrantly new’. R2

‘A mouth-watering collaboration’ \*\*\*\* 4 Stars Mojo

‘One of the finest collaborative albums of the past few years’ Folk Radio UK

This is an all ages event.

The Furrow Collective - We Know by the Moon

To the Boy

The Furrow Collective

Lucy Farrell

Emily Portman

Alasdair Roberts

Baba Yaga's Hut Presents:

Shovel Dance Collective + Laura Cannell

£18 (£14 unwaged / £22 donation) - Grand Junction - 9th December 2023

4th Annual Christmas Celebration!

\_\_\_\_

Nurturing a passion for the folk musics of the British Isles and Ireland with experimental tendencies, they explore the ways in which traditional music holds queer histories, proto-feminist narratives and the voices of working people. They are simultaneously traditional and experimental, seeing folk music as a living communal activity, inviting and generous to those it speaks to.

All ages

Baba Yaga's Hut

Shovel Dance Collective + Laura Cannell 

In The Sun Shadows We Walked

Shovel Dance Collective

Laura Cannell

A very rare opportunity to experience the atmosphere of Christmas in the Arab world as the Grand Junction in Paddington is gently lit by candles to hear Arabic, Syriac, Coptic and Byzantine chants, harking back to the time of Queen Zanubia’s Palmyra in the second century CE.

The sound world of these chants is rich with quarter tones and virtuosic ornamentation.

The evening is presented by Arts Canteen in collaboration with Grand Junction.

**We recommend pre-booking tickets to guarantee entry. Booking on the door will result in an additional fee of £1.**

This is an all ages event.

Arab Christmas

S. Carey is the moniker of Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Sean Carey, commonly recognized as the drummer, backing vocalist, and second-longest serving member of Bon Iver. Over the past decade, Carey has fostered his flourishing solo career via themes of nature and sustainability, songwriting built from jazz beginnings, and heartfelt, emotive lyricism. His latest and fourth album, Break Me Open, adds to a discography of three full-length releases, two EPs, and countless collaborations.

As S. Carey developed his songwriting and producing talents, he was commissioned by Will Arnett to write the track "Rose Petals" for his Netflix series Flaked, co-wrote "Hold The Light" with Dierks Bentley for feature-length film Only The Brave, contributed to Sufjan Stevens' album Carrie & Lowell,and has produced for and written with the likes of Low, Mike Kinsella, Pieta Brown, and Ed Tullett of Novo Amor. Carey and his adept band of longtime friends and collaborators celebrate their 12th year of touring everywhere from international headline shows to intimate living room performances to theatre stages.

This is a 14+ event (U16s accompanied by an adult).

Grand Junction

Upcoming events