YolanDa Brown

Double MOBO Award winning YolanDa Brown is the premier female saxophonist in the UK, known for her delicious fusion of reggae, jazz and soul. She has toured with Diana Krall, The Temptations, Billy Ocean, and collaborated with artists such as Snarky Puppy’s Bill Laurance, Reggae Legend Bob Marley’s son Julian and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. She is broadcaster – working on TV and radio, including her eponymous series for CBeebies, YolanDa’s Band Jam, which recently won the Royal Television Society NW Awards, Best Children’s Programme. For the BBC Proms she hosted the Ella and Dizzy Centenary, Gospel Choir of the Year for BBC 1, co presents Loose Ends with Clive Anderson on Radio 4 and recently sat in for Trevor Nelson on BBC Radio 2. She has appeared on shows including Celebrity Mastermind, BBC breakfast, House of Games, Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by the University of East London and also invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. A champion for the importance of music education, YolanDa is chair of Youth Music and launched along with James JP Drake, the Drake YolanDa Award for emerging musicians. On top of all of this YolanDa loves to drive fast cars around race tracks in her spare time – if you can seriously imagine her having any – and can even rattle off a Rubik’s Cube in around five minutes (on a good day). A real renaissance woman, set to reach new heights.