about the jmi foundation
The JMI Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that is creating a world where everyone can play jazz. The JMI Foundation’s aim is to remove barriers and increase access to an international standard of jazz education and performance.
The JMI Foundation wants to share its love for jazz music through rigorous pedagogy and excellent performance experiences that harness & inspire a supportive community, growing a wide-reaching respect and appreciation for jazz.
Friends of the foundation
The Friends of the Foundation program allows donors of the JMI Foundation to experience unique and intimate live jazz performances featuring the finest jazz musicians both locally, nationally and internationally. As a Friend of the Foundation member, you can enjoy a whole range of events presented throughout the year, including special access to live gigs, jazz appreciation nights and VIP events presented by the Foundation. All donations go towards funding future educational programs and concert series presented by the JMI Foundation.
education programs
The JMI Foundation has presented Essentially Ellington Down Under, a national high school big band festival delivered in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The festival features rare performance and educational opportunities for Australian high school students and teachers, receiving direct tuition from clinicians from the USA. This program has reached over 2,000 high school students and 200 teachers throughout Australia since 2019.
The foundation aims to continue to build education programs and performances of the highest quality for young musicians in rural and remote areas of Australia, as well as musicians in low socio-economic communities and from underprivileged backgrounds.
Live Concerts & Festivals
The JMI Foundation is committed to creating more awareness about jazz music to the wider community through presenting live jazz performances of the highest standard featuring local, interstate and international jazz artists. The foundation has produced an educational concert series featuring the JMI Jazz Orchestra as well as the King Street Jazz Festival in Alexandria Park, Bowen Hills. The foundation aims to continue to present the highest calibre of jazz musicians to the community through live concert series, educational concerts and festivals.
about the foundation patron: wynton marsalis
The JMI Foundation is honored to have the legendary Wynton Marsalis as its Foundation Patron.
Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and leading advocate of American culture. He presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School, and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.
Over the past four decades, Marsalis has rekindled and animated widespread international interest in jazz through performances, educational activities, books, curricula, and relentless advocacy on public platforms.
Wynton Marsalis’ core beliefs are based on jazz fundamentals: freedom and individual creativity (improvisation), collective action and good manners (swing), as well acceptance, gratitude and resilience (the blues). Marsalis believes that music has the power to elevate our quality of life and lead us both to higher and lower levels of consciousness. He maintains that music can elevate the quality of human engagement for individuals, social networks and cultural institutions throughout the world.