• #stage production,
• #education

Jazz Futures is an innovative education and audience-building program designed to inspire the next generation of jazz musicians and jazz listeners. The journey begins with an open call, inviting aspiring young artists to join a month-long training program. Through workshops and hands-on classes, participants explore new frontiers in jazz, learning to create music with production tools such as Ableton, Novation, and Pioneer DJ.

Central to the program is a concert that brings together some of the region’s most forward-thinking jazz voices. Headlining the event are Golden Melody Award-winning HK-US contemporary jazz band Invisible Architecture and Chinese experimental jazz duo INNOUT. Both groups seamlessly blend contemporary electronics and urban soundscapes with original jazz instrumentation, offering audiences an exciting vision of jazz’s future.

The concert also features the Jazz Futures Ensemble—six talented young musicians selected from the open call—who will premiere new works created during their training.

Date: 3 November 2024 (Sun)
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Theatre, East Kowloon Cultural Center, Hong Kong

Invisible Architecture
Comprised of Hong Kong native guitarist Alan Kwan, American drummer Matt Young, and keyboardist Jordan Gheen, the binational contemporary jazz group Invisible Architecture received a Golden Melody Awards in 2022 for their debut album Between Now and Never and has become one of the most watched emerging jazz groups in the region. Together they take the audience on an exploration between imagination and the imaginable with a virtuosic, live interpretation of their genre-melding works that fuse electronica with modern jazz vocabulary.

Performers
Alan Kwan | Guitar
Jordan Gheen | Keyboard
Matt Young | Drums
Mike Luzecky | Bass

INNOUT
INNOUT is a conceptual duo initiated by young guitarist and composer Xiao Jun and jazz musician An Yu in 2018. INNOUT's music extracts the improvisation and dance elements of jazz music, and organically mixes and amplifies them with the sound design and 44 rhythms of electronic music to bring forth a highly experimental sound quality. INNOUT is dedicated to pure improvisation, and each performance is an immediate presentation of the present and a new generation of thinking about music. INNOUT is committed to pure improvisation, and each performance is an immediate presentation of the present and the birth of a new musical reflection.

Performers
Xiao Jun | Guitar
An Yu | Drums
Niu Tian Yu | Keyboard
Ding Rui | Bass
Zhou Chang Sheng｜Synth

Jazz Futures Ensemble Tutors
Alan Kwan| Artistic Director
Jordan Gheen | Golden Melody Award-winning producer; multi-instrumentalist; composer
Dominic Au | Ableton Certified Instructor; founder of Polypumpkins duo
Matthew Kurpakus | Product Specialist for Focusrite Novation
The Heman | Producer and DJ

Jazz Futures is proudly supported by Novation, Ableton and Focusrite.

Jazz Society is the venue partner of East Kowloon Cultural Center. Jazz Futures is one of the "Unbox EKCC" trial programs of the East Kowloon Cultural Center.