Roella Oloro – EFG Late Night Jazz Festival at Royal Albert Hall

Presented as part of EFG London Jazz FestivalRoella Oloro is a British-born composer and multi-instrumentalist of Nigerian and Jamaican descent. She first moved to London in 2017 to study at Trinity Laban and quickly got involved with Londons vibrant scene, performing at venues such as Ronnies Scotts and Pizza Express. As a composer, she has written for a variety of different ensembles. One of her first pieces for big band, Cruisin, was played at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016.In Summer 2018, she was offered a full scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music after attending the schools 5- Week Performance Programme. Thanks to a rigorous fundraising campaign and much help from the music education network Tomorrows Warriors, she now currently attends Berklee College of Music. She recently won the ISJAC (International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers prize for Emerging Black Composers. In May 2022, she travelled to Austin, Texas to accept her award and perform with the 17-piece jazz orchestra that was provided.Whilst at Berklee she has received tutelage from exceptional professors such as NEA Jazz Masters Terri Lyne Carrington and Joanne Brackeen and Grammy nominated saxophonist Tia Fuller. This past spring semester, she studied with Esperanza Spalding at Harvard as part of Spaldings Black Improvisational Music and Dance class. She has received one to one lessons, comments and feedback from Patrice Rushen, Wayne Shorter, Melissa Aldana, Helen Sung, Camille Thurman, Rafael Zaldivar and many others. One of her most notable Berklee opportunities was performing with Berklees Jazz and Gender Justice Institute on WGBHs Basic Black TV show in Fall 2019.Over the course of the pandemic, She was a BBC Young Musician 2020 Semi-finalist, a Jazz South UK grant recipient, appeared on Decca Records, Alone Together Jazz piano album, on British TV as part of Jazz 625, the British Jazz Explosion and released her first single entitled Sacrificial Lamb.