Xhosa Cole
@ the Love Supreme Jazz Festival
6 July 2019
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Biography
Handsworth-born Xhosa Cole is an embodiment of
the success of numerous community arts programmes in Birmingham.
Having first played the Tenor at Andy Hamilton’s Ladywood
Community Music School, he’s now among a long legacy of Birmingham
Saxophonists. In October 2018, he won the BBC Young Jazz Musician
competition following a critically acclaimed performance in the
Final at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the BFI London Jazz
Festival.
Cole’s earliest memories of the arts are
with ACE Youth Dance group. However, since playing in Holyhead School’s
Jazz band with Ray Prince and Sid Peacock he decided to pursue music
and joined the Jazzlines Ensemble, Birmingham Schools Symphony Orchestra,
Midland youth Jazz Orchestra among others. While studying at Bishop
Vesey’s Sixth Form Xhosa attended courses with the National
Youth Jazz Collective and National Youth Wind Orchestra.
Cole continually pushes his playing while studying
with teachers and mentors including Mike Williams, Jim Bashford
and David Austin-Grey; Performing regularly around Birmingham; Writing
for commissions by the Ideas of Noise Festival and Bobbie-Jane Gardener’s
‘For-Wards’ and teaching Birmingham’s next generation
of talent alongside his former teacher Toni Grehan.
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