First staged in the summer of 1996, the annual festival has grown to feature hundreds of musicians, across 60+ free and ticketed events each year.
The festival traverses the city’s music venues and public spaces, which in 2025 include First Street, Matt & Phreds, Band on the Wall, St Ann’s Church, Band on the Wall, The Stoller Hall, The Carlton Club and Forsyths.
New and original work is championed, and regional, national and international artists celebrated through our performances, commissions and premieres.
Emerging and established artists are supported year round through mjf’s talent development programmes that have helped launched the careers of a host of artists. Click here to know mjf’s talent development programmes.
Throughout all of our work, we celebrate diversity, innovation and creativity.
Our EthosΒ
vision
mjf is the go-to UK opportunity for contemporary jazz artists to develop their practice and for audiences to experience new music: where artists can find themselves and audiences lose themselves.
mission
To grow contemporary jazz artists and audiences from the north and beyond via an annual festival in Manchester and year-round talent development programmes.
values
Adventurous, relevant, collaborative, inclusive, risk-taking, trusted and people-focussed.
As a not-for-profit charity, manchester jazz festival (mjf) relies on your support, and that of our funders, to bring the very best of our work to life. With your help, mjf can commission more ambitious projects, support more musicians across the North through our talent development programmes and create more performance opportunities on the festival stage and beyond for new and emerging artists.Β Β Click to learn just some of the ways you can support our organisation!
The mjf team:Β
The mjf board of trustees:
Vic Robinson (chair), Robin Phillips (vice-chair), Nelson Beaumont-Laurencia, Yemi Bolatiwa, Thanda Gumede, Gawen Higgins, Julia Payne, Lucy Scott, Danni Skerritt, Eric Solomons
mjf is an Arts Council England NPO, Manchester City Council Signature Event, and part of the GMCA Culture Fund portfolio. We are a Keychange signatory, maintaining 50/50 or greater gender balance in our teams and programming, and a Founder Member of Black Lives in Music.
We are also a member of the Europe Jazz Network, a founder member of the Jazz Promotion Network and a PRS Foundation Associate Talent Development Network Member.
mjf is honoured to remain the only UK recipient of the EJN Award for Adventurous Programming (2016).
