Help Jacob purchase a sax and attend university

Hi, I’m Jacob Wilson, I’m a 17 year old from Kent who aspires to have a career as a Jazz Musician. I discovered Jazz during my teenage years and since then I’ve become completely obsessed with the idea of building a career as a Jazz musician. I’m extremely passionate and will work as hard as possible in order to give me the best chance of achieving this dream.

My interest in playing music began when I was around 9 years old. I don’t come from a musical background so my desire to play music came entirely from my interest. I started playing clarinet and I did this to county level until I was around 14. As much as I enjoyed playing clarinet, I was mostly playing in wind bands & classical groups and this type of music wasn’t completely inspiring me.

However, things changed when I was 14 and I discovered Jazz music, I heard this amazing new music for the first time and knew I wanted to be a part of it. I heard players like Gene Ammons, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, John Coltrane, and Dexter Gordon and from there I knew what instrument I wanted to play. I immediately looked into playing the tenor saxophone and the best step for me was to borrow an instrument from my local music centre. The instrument happened to be a really great Selmer Mark VII (7) which I’ve continued playing since.

I now play with lots of different bands including the National Youth Jazz Orchestra Academy Big Band + Advanced Group, Kent Youth Jazz Orchestra, Invicta Jazz Orchestra, and Steve Nathan Big Band. As well as this I play with a quartet of friends in my local area and I’m currently running my school’s Big Band.

I’ve had lots of amazing opportunities so far such as workshops with great musicians like Tim Garland, Steve Waterman and Derek Nash, however, the most important thing so far for me has been the opportunity to have lessons with Tony Kofi. Tony has been a massive inspiration to me for a long time now and so getting the opportunity to have lessons with him has been truly incredible. Tony has heightened my motivation and passion even further and his teaching has helped carry my playing and confidence to a higher level.

As I’m in year 13 I’m currently in the process of auditioning for conservatoires. I hope to be accepted to one of the places I’ve applied to meaning I’ll need to take my instrument away there next year. Unfortunately though, due to a variety of reasons I’ve not been able to purchase an instrument to take away to university next year. My hope with this page is to raise enough money for me to purchase either the Mark VII that I’ve become so comfortable with or another instrument in a similar range. To help me have to best chance next year at university I want to be able to play on an instrument I’m comfortable with and using funding to pay for this instrument is realistically the only way I’ll be able to do this.

Any donations you can offer are amazing and highly appreciated, you’ll be helping someone who’s very dedicated and committed to building a successful career in music and your kindness would mean so much to me.