South Coast Jazz Festival Launch

January 2015 saw Claire Martin OBE and Julian Nicholas launch the South Coast Jazz Festival, which took place over the weekend of 23-25 January 2015. Claire and Julian have joined forces and combined their love of the South Coast and their professional jazz profiles to curate this inaugural jazz festival. The event was held at Shoreham’s vibrant Ropetackle Arts Centre.Claire has established herself as a tour de force on the UK jazz scene winning the British Jazz Awards seven times and an OBE for her services to jazz. In addition to this, she is also a dedicated Patron at the Starr Trust and says “I was asked by Rob Starr to become a Patron as his father Edward, a fan of jazz, came to see me sing often and I spoke to him quite a bit over the years. I loved everything about the charity and was keen to get involved however I could. I’m very honoured to be a part of this wonderful group doing incredibly inspiring work, championing young people.”Darren Abrahams, director at the Starr Trust, attended the launch and spoke about Claire’s role as Patron and her passion and determination to bring vibrant and inspirational music to the community, reaching out to schools and trying to get jazz on the curriculum. This is an exciting initiative that the Starr Trust supports and one that Edward Starr would have loved.