NYJC has worked hard over the last 3 years to integrate the Keychange mission into our programming and influence change – ensuring the gender ratio of teaching artists leading each project and composers selected for each activity’s programme is 50:50.
NYJC’s commitment to a gender-balanced programme continues to be steered & shaped by NYJC”s multi-award-winning founding Executive Artistic Director Issie Barratt, who in 2018 was identified by BBC Radio 4’s power list as one of the 40 most influential women in the music industry.
Issie Barratt…
… is a multi-award winning internationally active composer, arranger, conductor, baritone player, record producer and educator. Ranked by BBC Radio 4’s Women in Music Power List 2018 as one of the 40 most influential women in the music industry, Issie has performed at a majority of leading venues and festivals in Northern Europe. South-East India, Central America and the east coast of Canada. Known for her genre-fluid approach to composition, her diverse catalogue of commissions includes works for orchestra, big band, choir and chamber ensembles, often featuring internationally acclaimed soloists.
Issie runs her own three ensembles – A 21-piece jazz orchestra, Meinrad Iten Quartet and her ground-breaking ensemble INTERCHANGE (championing the music of women jazz composers performed by a diverse collective of female improvisers) and is the founding Director of Fuzzy Moon Records with a catalogue of 15 CDs championing a roster of over 100 performing artists.
A passionate and dedicated educator
- Founding Head of Jazz at Trinity Laban in 1999 (which she headed until 2004)
- Founding Artistic Director of National Youth Jazz Collective
- One of the five key tutors for the Sound and Music Summer School for Young Composers
- Adjudicator for Music for Youth’s National Festival of Music
- Examiner for Royal Welsh College of Music and Royal Scottish Conservatoire.
- Frequently commissioned to write new works by UK conservatoires and national youth music organisations
Awards and Nominations
- 2018 BBC R4 Power List of Women in Music
- 2017 Winner Music Teachers Award for Excellence: Best New Initiative
- 2014 Winner Parliamentary Jazz Award for Jazz Education
- 2011 shortlisted for the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Awards for Artists
A very active, change-making jazz composer and educator, with lots of high-profile commissions under her belt and influential activities across the board.”
BBC Radio 4 Power List 2018
Woman's Hour
