The Sydney Youth Jazz Orchestra will be going to Japan in January 2027. The 11-day tour will take SYJO to Tokyo, Miyazu, Kobe and the Kansai region, where the band will play at jazz clubs, concerts, and festivals. Highlights are set to include a jazz club performance at Shinjuku Pit Inn, the JAJE Student Jazz Festival at Teatro Giglio Showa in Kawasaki, performing alongside Japanese student jazz bands, a guest performance at TakuTaku in Kyoto, and an Earthquake Memorial Concert in Kobe. There will even be a performance at Tokyo Disneyland.
This will be SYJO’s first international tour since the orchestra was established as an independent ensemble. It follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, the JWA Big Band, which toured overseas several times, including trips to Barbados and the USA in 2010 and 2012, and most recently in 2014.
Overseas band tours like this are a great way to showcase an excellent ensemble like SYJO to a wider audience and represent the quality of young Australian jazz musicians on an international stage. More than this, however, being part of such an undertaking can be a powerful and formative experience in the development of young artists. Preparing for the tour, rehearsing, working together to raise funds, and then spending time together ‘on the road’ can tighten the band as an ensemble and strengthen the community within and around it like few other experiences can.
Touring also exposes our musicians to a wider musical and cultural world, including opportunities to hear and meet international-level musicians. Like few other experiences, it can open young musicians’ eyes and ears to new possibilities, and to a world far broader than their routine everyday experience.
Of course, undertakings like this are not cheap but it is important to make opportunities like this accessible to all the musicians in the band. So, the members and families of SYJO are already busy fundraising to make it possible for everyone who wants to go. A major fundraising concert will be at Avalon Bowling Club in late October:
SYJO fundraiser at Avalon Bowling Club
- Sydney Youth Jazz Orchestra
- Friday 30 October, 7pm
- Avalon Bowlo
- Live big band jazz for listening and dancing
- Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/sydney-youth-jazz-orchestra-a-night-in-avalon
- All proceeds support the SYJO Japan Tour 2027 student bursary fund. Sydney Youth Jazz Orchestra Inc ABN 16 835 565 263.
Come and hear one of Australia’s outstanding young jazz orchestras and help support the musicians heading to Japan.
SYJO has vacanices for a sax player (alto or bari) and a bass trombinist to join the Japan tour with the opportunity to become permanent members for 2027. Auditions 11-12 October.
