Pupils get a musical masterclass for Derry Jazz Festival

The Heavy Beat Brass Band played original music and a jazz version of Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky'

In the oft misguided world of musical stereotypes, there are certain easy to fall into traps.

Teenage girls love listening to boy bands, while teenage boys blare angst-fuelled anthems through their headphones.

Students scream over one another as the DJ plays the latest techno tune in the student union.

And the elderly? Well, the elderly, they listen to jazz.

And they do so on a record player, while wearing slippers and sipping on a mug of tea.

But Northern Ireland's biggest jazz and big band festival is debunking those musical myths and turning misconceptions on their head.

More than 200 acts appeared across 70 venues throughout Londonderry during the five-day run of the City of Derry Jazz & Big Band Festival - and there's been a real emphasis on turning younger people on to jazz.

The Heavy Beat Brass Band has been in the city throughout the Bank Holiday weekend festival.

As part of the focus on introducing jazz to a new generation, they visited Foyle College.

The children were split into different instrument groups

The Birmingham-based band started out their Derry jazz trip by giving school pupils from across the city a New Orleans-style jazz masterclass.

Pupils from Drumahoe, Lisneal and Ebrington learned to play some of the band's material as part of an intensive short course.

"We were teaching them a couple of New Orleans-style traditional marching tunes so that they could come and play with us on the streets," says band leader Charlie Lancaster.

Heavy Beat Brass Band joined other groups attending the festival in a musical parade around Derry's city centre on Saturday afternoon.

"It definitely is an older style of music and an older generation's style of jazz, but there's a recent growing movement of young brass bands mixing modern pop music into this kind of traditional jazz, which brings in a lot of youngsters with tunes that they already know," says Charlie.

"It's tunes that they can sing along to, while we're also sneakily getting them to listen to a little bit of jazz, but it's just important to get these kids enthusiastic about real live music."

The student becomes the master

At least a hundred pupils, ranging from age eight to 15, were banging on drums, blowing on trumpets, shaking maracas and singing smoothly in true jazz fashion.

By the end of the hour-long course, the sound of brass was blazing across the entire school ground.

The children were playing along perfectly and Foyle College's head of music, Brenda O'Somachain, was in awe.

"Our kids are fabulous. To have a musical talent is a great thing," she says.

"To be able to nurture that talent, we are really lucky to be able to do that, to give them the opportunity to enjoy working with professionals like they are today and learning about a style of music that they might not have played before.

"Today gives them an opportunity to do that and just lets them play together and have some fun which is a huge part of it."

However, for some of the pupils, the workshop wasn't their first introduction to jazz , so clearly the stereotypes about what youngsters are searching on Spotify isn't completely true.

"I play the clarinet but I'm starting to play the saxophone as well," says Matthew McMonagle, 14, from Foyle College.

"I'm in the jazz band and it's great to be able to play modern songs.

"You're able to improvise a little bit as well which is good fun and it shows a different way of playing rather than just an orchestra where you play one note after the other. There's more freedom."

What does the jazz festival do for Derry?

The first City of Derry Jazz Festival in 2001 attracted more than 6,000 visitors.

Now the five-day multi-venue festival - which ended on Monday - was expected to attract 70,000 visitors and among its highlights were headline performances from Marc Almond, Sid Peacock and the Surge Orchestra, Mr Wilson's Second Liners, Cian Boylan and Kitty LaRoar.

Stephen Gillespie, Director of Business and Culture, Derry City and Strabane District Council, said: "The jazz festival sees year-on-year growth which gives a great boost to our local economy and builds on its status as a key tourist attraction."

Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, councillor John Boyle, added: "The jazz and big band festival is one of the highlights of our year and is hugely successful with a wide range of people.

"This year, our young people are more involved than ever before which is fantastic to see as it brings music to a whole new generation as well as showcases the incredible talent of the young people in the city and district."