London born and Hastings raised, award-winning singer-pianist Liane Carroll is one of the UK’s greatest musical treasures. A soulful, emotive singer, she is capable of reducing listeners to tears with her heart-breaking ability to inhabit a lyric or of making an audience jump for joy with her breath-taking vocal virtuosity.
What really makes Carroll stand out however is the way that she delivers every song as though she wrote it. A classically trained pianist since she was three, she possesses a true musicality that lifts her interpretations into the realms of art in their own right and
to hear her sing even the best known standard or the most hackneyed pop song is to hear that song afresh.
In 2010 Liane signed to Quiet Money and released Up and Down featuring Kirk Whalum (saxophone) and the late Kenny Wheeler (flugelhorn). Ballads followed in 2013 with arrangements specially written by Los Angeles based, Grammy winning orchestrator Chris Walden. The album was launched during a sell-out five-night residency at London’s renowned Pizza Express Jazz Club.
Her most recent album Seaside and her third produced by James McMillan of Quietmoney were released on Linn Records in September 2015. Happily settled in Hastings with husband (bassist) Roger Carey, Liane maintains a hectic schedule of touring both in the UK and abroad and regularly headlines at London’s legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
A passionate educator, she is a tutor at workshops, summer schools and festivals and regularly works with young ensembles and choirs.

Awards

Winner: ‘Best Vocalist’ and ‘Best of Jazz’ – BBC Jazz Awards 2005

Winner: ‘Musician Of The Year’ – British Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2008

Winner: ‘Best Jazz Album of the Year’ – Parliamentary Jazz Award’s 2012

Nominated: ‘Best UK Vocalist of 2012’ – Jazz FM Awards 2013

Winner: ‘Best British Vocalist’ – British Jazz Awards 2013

Winner: ‘Best new CD’ – British Jazz Awards 2015 (Seaside)

2005 Awarded ‘Best Vocalist’ and ‘Best of Jazz’ at the BBC Jazz Awards for her album ‘Billy No Mates’ on Splash Point Records. – Recorded ‘Standard Issue’ at the famous Abbey Road studios in London – Awarded Marston Pedigree Jazz Award ‘Best Vocalist’ for Standard Issue2006 Liane’s performance at the Brecon Jazz Festival was recorded by BBC TV as an hour long special ‘Liane Carroll Trio LIVE, and released on DVD in 2008.
Since 1993, Liane has headlined at the legendary Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club, London UK and in 2007 won ‘Best Female Jazz Vocalist’ at their first Awards. where she has also recorded two live CD’s for their Jazz House label.2007 Glastonbury Festival, The Liane Carroll Trio made a head-line performance to over 300,000 listeners on BBC Radio 3.
‘Slow Down,’ released on Splashpoint Records. The Sunday Times selected Slow Down as one of their top five jazz albums of the year. Featured by MOJO Magazine in their Top 10 Playlist for 2007.2008 British Parliamentary Jazz Award for ‘Musician Of The Year’. 2009 Performed to rapturous audiences at Dizzy’s Jazz Club in New York’s Lincoln Center, and the Rochester Jazz Festival.2010 Liane signed to Quiet Money Productions – Recorded ‘Up and Down’ featuring Kirk Whalum on sax and on flugelhorn Kenny Wheeler. The James McMillan produced album received glowing reviews from Jazzwise, MOJO to The Sunday Times.
2012, Up and Down voted as Best Jazz Album of the Year in the Parliamentary Jazz Award’s – Liane awarded ‘Best British Vocalist’ in British Jazz Awards 2013, January nominated as best UK Vocalist of 2012 at the first JazzFM’s Awards
Together with trumpeter, UP and Down producer James McMillan, Liane’s new album ‘Ballads’ was released on 15th April 2013. The album is reflective and has a different take on her previous recordings with the addition of strings. The arrangements have been especially written for Liane by Los Angeles based, Grammy winner orchestrator Chris Walden. The City of Prague Philharmonic, Gwilym Simcock, Kirk Whalum are featured on the track here’s to life.
April 13th St. Mary in the Castle, Hastings was the local Ballads launch with a 40 strong orchestra, with members from the East Sussex Youth Orchestra string section and musicians from the recording. This was followed by five sell-out launch nights at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in London. Each night featured musicians from the Ballads recording, Gwilym Simcock, Mark Edwards, Ben Castle plus a 7 piece string ensemble.
2013 Liane guested on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Horne Section’ with Alex Horne. Conducts workshops and Masterclass’s in the UK, France, Italy, Hawaii and Portugal. Performs at music venue’s and festivals everywhere, solo, trio, quartet and with full orchestra.

Sara Colman is amongst the UK’s most respected jazz vocalists. After being selected for the Jerwood series of Rising Star concerts she was a recipient of an inaugural Birmingham Jazz Award and has since forged a strong individual voice with the celebrated album Ready and performances at major UK venues and festivals.
Sara enjoyed a longstanding collaboration in vocal trio The Passion; and wrote and performed for the eponymous ‘Colman Brothers’ album with her brothers Mat and Andrew.
In recent years Sara has enjoyed a showcase performance at Jazzahead conference in Germany, Jazzlines Vocal Series gigs with Jose James and Claire Martin, and a performance of new music at Manchester Jazz Festival with Jami Sheriff.
Sara was invited by Laura Mvula to feature alongside her in the orchestral performances of music from her album Sing to the Moon with the Metropole Orkest. It’s concert debut was at the BBC Proms in 2014 and in 2015 they performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, with the Helsinki Philharmonic in Finland and made a live DVD from Paradiso in Amsterdam.
As a published and commissioned songwriter Sara has written and arranged for a capella group Black Voices, The Lichfield Festival and Lichfield Gospel Choir.
May 2016 saw performances of a musical Sara wrote with novelist Mez Packer called The Hand that Feeds to audiences of thousands at the Bullring in Birmingham.
Sara recently collaborated with the young singer-songwriterMahalia (whom she also coaches) to write UP which features on her EP Never Change. Mahalia has supported Ed Sheeran, Emily Sande and was the vocalist/co-writer on We the Generation by Rudimental. (**A little interesting fact …… in their very early days, Sara coached the Irish girl band Wonderland!) Sara is a very experienced vocal tutor with more than twenty years experience of working in a variety of educational settings. She is one third of Colman Carroll & Bancroft and along with touring this year their Vocal Jazz workshops in Cromarty, Pathhead, Hastings, Portugal and now France are always enthusiastically enjoyed!
Since 2012 Sara and Percy Pursglove have led the increasingly popular Jazzlines Summer School in Birmingham along with the instrumental and vocal ensemble sessions that continue through the year.
Sara has been a jazz vocal tutor at Birmingham Conservatoire for over twelve years and is a regular tutor at the Montgomery/Holloway Music Trust summer school.
Sara has an MA in Songwriting and runs workshops in songwriting a enjoys working on creating original materials with singers - I believe that by writing and singing something of your own, something completely new, you find a voice which is authentic and unique – even if you never sing that song in public, at least you have accessed that sound which you can now use in other songs you do sing in publiC
Based in Bristol, Sara is writing and recording for a new album to be released by Stoney Lane records in early spring 2017.

“It’s not easy being a singer. First of all there is no external instrument to help produce the right sound; the singer is the instrument.  Then there are those twisting and turning melody lines to negotiate.  And to top it all there are these pesky things called lyrics.  There are countless singers who, blessed with good vocal cords and a good musical memory, are able to master those first two steps.
But it’s the special few who make sense of step three.  And Sara Colman is one of those.  She doesn’t just make a lovely sound floating over the surface of melody and words; she takes up residence in the song.  And her musical home has many rooms – jazz standards like I’m beginning to see the light, contemporary songs by Joni Mitchell, Walter Becker and India Arie, her own songs, and those of friends like Jacqui Dankworth.  They have striking images in them – stars implode, there are subliminal messages on the TV – and they centre, of course, upon the euphoria and despair that are integral to affairs of the heart.” - Excerpt from album launch review by  Peter Bacon

“If there’s another solo vocal album released by a UK jazz artist this year that supplies a bigger sugar-rush of auditory pleasure than Ready, I’ll eat the next Jazzwise covermount CD.” – Jazzwise

Emilia Mårtensson is a London based Swedish vocalist and composer of considerable repute. Since graduating from Trinity College of Music, Greenwich in 2007, Emilia has built a well- deserved reputation as one of the most exciting young vocalists on the UK Jazz scene.  Her gently expressive voice and highly personal compositions are firmly rooted within the folklore and countryside of her native southern Sweden, adding to the mystique and allure of a distinctive and truly original artist.
Emilia was nominate and chosen in 2015 to partake in ‘The Take Five’ Artist Program delivered by national music producers Serious. She was also rewarded the ‘Women Make Music’ funding scheme delivered by PRSF for her new Album Project, which will be released later this year on the London Based label ‘Two Rivers’. 

Her critically acclaimed contributions (both as vocalist and lyricist) to Kairos 4Tet no doubt helped them bring home a 2011 MOBO Award, while her distinctive voice led The Observer to deem her ‘The New Face of British Jazz 2012′. In the same year, she released her debut album ‘And So It Goes…’ on Babel Label. The album is a project between Emilia and pianist Barry Green, which documents the duo’s shared love of a wide range of material, presenting fresh and exciting arrangements of a superb choice of songs.  Drawing on the wistful folk songs of Emilia’s homeland alongside some of the greatest songs of the last century, the recording is a finely poised blend of Jazz, Folk and artful Alternative Pop. The album was listed as one of the top ten best albums in 2012 by JazzWise.
On her most recent album ‘Ana’, dedicated to her grandparents and named after Emilia’s Slovenian grandmother’s Ana-Emilia, Mårtensson continues to blur the lines between Jazz/Folk and Alt- Pop through her own compositions as well as collaborations with some of the finest writers that London’s music scene has to offer. Personal interpretations of tracks by Paul Simon and Joe Henderson also feature and of course a couple of Swedish Folk songs, one of which Emilia wrote herself.  This second album demonstrates Emilia’s constant evolution as both a songwriter and performer, retaining tender poignant tones with powerful observations of human nature through her lyrics. The musicians on the album fully compliment this journey, adding their own magical touches to the heartfelt arrangements. The album was listed as one of the top ten best albums in 2014 by JazzWise.  
Emilia has toured the UK extensively and in 2013 was nominated by Svensk Jazz for their so called Pulsslags Turnen, commissioning a 2 week-long tour across Sweden, along with her band.  Emilia has also performed in venues and festivals such as Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, The Royal Albert Hall, Pizza Express Jazz Club, The Vortex, The 606 Club, on Jamie Cullum’s BBC Radio 2 show, The Love Supreme Jazz Festival, The London Jazz Festival, Cheltenham Jazz Festival (to name just some of the places). She has also appeared on large international stages and in festivals such as Bimhuis in Amsterdam, Sunset Sunside Jazz Club in Paris, Baladoor Jazz Festival in Slovenia, Vossa Jazz Festival in Norway, Umea Jazz Festival in Sweden and Ystad Jazz Festival in Sweden and Fashing in Stockholm and Cankarjev Dom in Ljubljana.  
Apart from her own albums, Emilia collaborates on many other projects, such as the new ‘Folktronic’ project, going by the name Embla, featuring some of London’s top producers and musicians. Emilia is also featured on many other projects,such as Iain Ballamy’s new project ‘An Apes Progress’ . She also recently recorded vocals for Dave McKeans’s new film La Luna as well as music by accordionist Janez Dovc for the Slovenian movie ‘The Tree’.  

“Ana again proves that Martensson has something very special to offer, and the album is something of simple beauty. There’s a brilliantly judged and utterly natural sounding balance between duskiness and pure-toned clarity in her voice, but what really impresses is a talent for story-telling within the context of her songs and for drawing the listener in”. -JazzUK

….”A voice of quite remarkable expressive depth” -JAZZWISE

“Exquisitely beautiful songs… Martensson has struck gold.” – JAZZWISE

…”Martensson invest every sound with a skimming, rapturous lightness and clarity”… JF, The Guardian

 …”Ethereal Voice… -Time Out

…”the music is immediately enchanting, bewitching, and approachable…” -AllAboutJazz

‘And so it goes’ could easily turn out to be the best new vocal jazz release of 2012″-Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise

“…Another delighted feature is the pearly innocence of Martensson’s voice and pianist Barry Green’s understated warmth.”-The Daily Telegraph