RNCM Big Band with Sara Dowling (vocals) at RNCM

Johnny James, Managing Editor

Book now

RNCM Big Band with Sara Dowling (vocals)

27 June 2024

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Photo of Sara Dowling singing into microphone
RNCM
Book now

This June, the RNCM welcomes back jazz singer Sara Dowling for a one-off performance with the RNCM Big Band.

Voted Best Vocalist in the British Jazz Awards 2019, Sara Dowling is fast gaining fame as one of the most talented jazz singers in the UK. With Palestinian and Irish heritage, she first trained as a cellist at Chetham’s School of Music and the RNCM, before emerging not only as a powerful jazz vocalist but also a prolific composer of songs for the music industry’s most iconic publishing companies, including EMI, Sony and Warner.

Finding influence in Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan, Dowling is loved for her vibrant fusion of nostalgic classical harmonies and American post-bop rhythms of the late 1960s, where interplay and improvisation are at the heart of the performance. Across her career so far, she’s shared the stage with everyone from Ronnie Scott’s All Star Band to Welsh jazz singer Ian Shaw, and performed at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals in the UK and Europe.

Following such performances, Dowling has been garlanded with praise for the burning conviction with which she approaches singing, her irresistible communicative power, and her masterful musicality. Her recorded output is no less acclaimed, with Jazz In Europe describing her last album, From Shadows Into Light, as “a work of sheer musicality and craftsmanship.”

It’s a timeless kind of style that Dowling brings to both her covers of standards and her original tunes, and yet it is also a style that is her own, one that – like all great singers – has developed and flourished as part of a dedicated musical journey. To come full circle, where this journey began, must be a special moment for Dowling, and no doubt it’ll be a special moment for all in attendance at the RNCM on 27 June.

Where to go near RNCM Big Band with Sara Dowling (vocals) at RNCM

Manchester
Restaurant
San Carlo Fumo

San Carlo Fumo is a sun trap on St Peter’s Square, serving up traditional Italian food at its best

Utility Gift Shop
Manchester
Shop
Utility Gift Shop

Utility Gift Shop on Oxford Road is all about products that are new, unique, quirky and cool. High street shopping at its best.

exterior of Contact Theatre building
Manchester
Theatre
Contact Theatre

Following a major redevelopment, the iconic venue on Oxford Road will be reopening its doors to welcome the public back into the building this autumn. 

The Salutation pub in Manchester
Manchester
Bar or Pub
The Salutation

This traditional boozer, surrounded by imposing flats and university buildings, was taken over by Trof (of the Deaf Institute fame). The Sally, as the regulars call it, hosts an energetic, arty crowd – and its recently expanded outside area is another good reason to visit.

What's on: Music

Summer at Aviva Studios
Until
ActivityManchester
Summer at Aviva Studios

From global dance and live music to storytelling, skateboarding and football, get ready for a dream summer on the banks of the River Irwell.

Free entry
the band
MusicLeeds
DIIV at Project House

Emerging from a four-year crucible of creative tension and personal reckoning, Brooklyn shoegazers DIIV return to Leeds.

From £22.50
Blondshell by Hannah Bon.
MusicManchester
Blondshell at New Century

With sardonic wit, towering hooks and distortion dialled high, Blondshell lands at New Century this September, armed with album number two.

From £24.00
Lyra Pramuk by Leonardo Scotti
MusicManchester
Lyra Pramuk at The White Hotel

Part prayer, part protest, part dancefloor séance – Lyra Pramuk brings her otherworldly live show to The White Hotel.

From £19.60
Sans Froid
MusicLeeds
Sans Froid at Wharf Chambers

Smart, eccentric, and gleefully out of step with trends – Bristol quartet Sans Froid bring their tangled, piano-led art-rock to Leeds.

From £8.00
MusicBlackburn
Confessional Festival

Blackburn’s Confessional Festival turns ten, celebrating with two days of live music set beneath the stained glass and vaulted stonework of Holy Trinity Church.

From £20

Culture Guides

Detail of an abstract sculpture, with burned materials and rusty chicken wire at the centre, with rusted metal bars bent around it.
Exhibitions in the North

Chocolate fountains, beautiful batiks and medieval marginalia - this month's supersized Exhibitions Guide has it all.

Literature Events in the North

The autumn leaves might be falling already, but the harvest is plentiful as the live literature scene gets back into the swing of things after a summer break...

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

This season’s theatre is gloriously eclectic: from radical cabaret and reinvented classics to new musicals and boundary-pushing performance.

Cinema in the North

This month we recommend a season of Film noir, cult Australian movies and a huge celebration of DIY community cinema.