College inspired young pianist

Pianist Julian Joseph

JAZZ pianist Julian Joseph returns to his roots this week to make a one-off appearance at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival.
The virtuoso, who has made his name through composing and leading his own jazz band and presenting a Jazz Legends show on BBC Radio 3, revealed the debt he feels for the Weekend Arts College (WAC), based at Hampstead Town Hall where he will be playing.
Mr Joseph, 39, recalled how the college – then based in Kentish Town – gave him a musical education.
He said: “I want to help younger musicians and provide opportunities for people so they can do what I’ve done.”
As a youngster, Mr Joseph would spend weekends at the Interchange Centre in Dalby Street, Kentish Town.
It is now based at the refurbished Hampstead Town Hall in Haverstock Hill, where he will be playing on Sunday.
His appearance follows an approach by WAC director Celia Greenwood, who had inspired him as a young musician.
He said: “It is a pleasure to perform. If Celia asks me to do something, I’ll do it because Celia is a mentor to so many.”
Mr Joseph has been playing the piano since he was six – he came home from school to find one in his front room and his mother Ursula announcing he and his two brothers would all be taking lessons.
He said: “My mother’s philosophy is that for a rounded education children must know about the arts. We were also sent to dance classes, taken to museums, the ballet and art exhibitions.”
Mr Joseph showed a natural talent for the piano, but was drawn to jazz, partly through his love of pianist Oscar Peterson. And then a friend at his Wandsworth school told him about the Weekend Arts College.
Mr Joseph recalls: “He was going to WAC and I remember asking him: ‘Do you think I’ll be good enough?’ He just laughed at me, and so I came to Kentish Town.
“WAC became a meeting point for young musicians and a melting pot for talent. I came into my own there. It was where I found other people like me. I could write pieces of music and get them played.”
WAC also introduced Mr Joseph to jazz musicians Courtney Pine, Steve Williamson, Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Mark and Michael Mondesi, and it led him to America, where he studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
He says his own brand of jazz sits neatly alongside the classical music on the festival’s programme – and in his own work he aims to marry jazz’s anarchy with the control of classical music.
He explained: “Jazz always had to battle for its future. It is popular for its own sake and it doesn’t need any other music to make it valid.
“I have grown up loving the music of Prokofiev, Poulenc, Debussy and Beethoven, and so it is no secret that I love and respect that music. The world has an easier time listening to classical music and respecting it. They have a problem with respecting jazz.”
He added: “I love classical music but jazz is where I get all my power from, all my technique, the way I analyse music and think about music.
“So being a jazz musician and loving classical music just opens up the pathway to all music.”

• Julian Joseph is in concert at Hampstead Town Hall at 8pm on Sunday. Box office is on 0870 033 2733.