THE Jazz Directors Series was set up to champion and support the next wave of UK music talent – and in the past two years prominent artists have been at the helm.

That includes Grammy-winning jazz artist Terence Blanchard, who has composed the music for every Spike Lee film since the 90s and US jazz saxophonist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Chris Potter.

No pressure, then, for Zoe Rahman who is the latest musician to lead the project.

She said: “It’s a huge honour for me to be following in their footsteps. It’s really lovely to have been asked. It came out of the blue a few months ago and it’s a great opportunity for me to get my music out there. I supported Terence Blanchard at Gateshead Jazz Festival last year. He’s an incredible musician.”

Zoe will lead a workshop and short tour with a 10-piece band known as the Inner City Ensemble

After an open call for auditions they were picked from the most promising emerging professional musicians in the UK and the they will be performing with Zoe at the Pyramid on Saturday, October 21.

The ensemble will play material previously written for a Guildhall School of Music and Drama project as well as collaborating on new music.

Zoe, who won a MOBO Award for her fifth album Kindred Spirits in 2012, said: “I just like to see what’s going on these days with young musicians because I love jazz and I want there to be a future for it.

“I like the thought that my music can be played by new people and expressed in a different way to how I originally conceived it.

“It’s also a good opportunity for me to arrange some of my music for a large ensemble.

“I’m really excited to be working with a bigger band to the one I normally tour with.”

Zoe, born in Chichester to a Bengali father and English mother, studied classical piano at the Royal Academy of Music, took a music degree at Oxford University and then won a scholarship to study jazz performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

She added: “When I came back to London I was very much trying to find my own way and link up with musicians. It was a very hard journey so this is an amazing opportunity for these musicians.

“They’re meeting people from all over the country and they have four back-to-back gigs, which is very unusual in jazz with a 10-piece band like that.”

Nevertheless Zoe has fond memories of her early days when she was studying in the States and soaking up her jazz influences.

Zoe, who has worked with the likes of George Mraz, Courtney Pine and Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra, said: “I experienced gigs in a very different way to how I experience them here.

“I used to get the bus down from Boston to New York to go to little gigs around the place and Kenny Kirkland was playing in an Italian restaurant in the corner while people were eating their pizzas.

“He’s an amazing piano player and it’s not the sort of place you’d see him in London.

“You’d go and see him at a bigger venue maybe in the Southbank or at Jazz Café. I also saw McCoy Tyner in small jazz bar in Boston. Just being able to approach these people, hang out, ask advice or even play for them, if they let you, gave me the chance to see jazz in the way it was originally intended – in a very intimate environment.”

Zoe will be passing on as much of that experience as possible to the Inner City Ensemble.

She added: “Getting to know them as musicians will be the challenge in the first place. Initially the first thing is to play through the charts that I’ve written but beyond that we’ll see what they bring to it and how it progresses through the week. The magic really happens on stage. A long time ago I used to play at Ronnie Scott’s in the days when you’d have a whole week run and by the end of the week you felt like you could play anything. I hope it’s the same with this band.”

But Zoe said her greatest honour was when her second album, Melting Pot, was nominated in 2006 for the Mercury Music Prize.

All of a sudden she was being mentioned in the same breath as Thom Yorke, Arctic Monkeys and Muse.

The mum-of-two said: “That was a big turning point in my career in terms of people hearing my music.

“The night itself was pretty surreal I have to admit. Generally as a jazz musician you don’t have the support in the same way that you do if you’re one of those big rock stars. At the time – even still now – I didn’t have that network of people around me. So when you’re thrust into the spotlight on that level it’s quite challenging.

“But it’s an amazing platform for musicians like myself. I watched Laura Jurd who was the jazz nominee this year. She did a fantastic job. It’s great to see her up there because there aren’t that many women jazz musicians who get seen in the public eye.

“Music has always been in my family and my siblings and I always used to play together.

“But the turning point for me was going to a jazz gig for the first time and seeing amazing music being created in the moment.

“There was a bar at the back – not like a classical gig – and just a bit of a vibe and that’s hopefully what I’m going to bring to Warrington.

“After that my brother and I went to see the likes of Wayne Shorter and Miles Davies and tried to play like them. I still can’t do it but I keep trying...”

Zoe Rahman and the Inner City Ensemble are at the Pyramid on Saturday, October 21. Visit pyramidparrhall.com or call 442345 for tickets