We are extremely lucky to have Roella Oloro and her trio performing a homecoming gig here in Stroud as part of their US, UK and European Tour, less than a week before performing at The Royal Albert Hall as part of EFG London Jazz Festival 2025. The trio, all alumni of the Berklee College of Music undergrad and master’s programme, will be performing a mixture of Roella’s originals and their take on jazz standards as well as a fusion of different styles that each band member brings to the group.
Roella is a New-York based, British multi-instrumentalist, performer and composer of Nigerian and Jamaican heritage. She is a full-tuition scholarship recipient and recent Magna Cum Laude graduate of Berklee College of Music and has also obtained a Master’s Degree at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.
Her early musical home was in the Pentecostal Church playing piano in regional gospel choirs around south west England, teaching her to play piano by ear alongside her classical training in piano, clarinet, alto saxophone and bass guitar. Roella became inspired by jazz in her early teens after hearing the virtuosic brilliance of Oscar Peterson.
Roella moved to London in 2017 to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich. Whilst there, she quickly got involved with London’s vibrant scene, performing with bands like the Tomorrow’s Warriors Female Frontline, as well as regularly attending jams at Ronnie Scott’s, The Haggerston, Troy Bar and Steamdown among others.
In 2018, Roella was awarded a full tuition room and board scholarship to take part in the Women’s Performance Programme run by Legendary Jazz Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington at Berklee College of Music’s 5-week summer performance programme in Boston. At the end of the programme she auditioned and was awarded a full tuition scholarship to study at Berklee full-time on their undergraduate course. In September 2019 Roella started studying at Berklee College of music full time in the US. Over her first year at Berklee she formed part of Terri-Lyne Carrington’s Jazz and Gender Justice Institute. Through this and other Berklee classes Roella was able to meet and study with Jazz legends.
In 2025, Roella performed sold-out shows in London, California, Brooklyn, and Boston. In 2024, she toured Panama with the Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors led by Danilo Pérez. Highlights from 2023 include performances at Capital Turnaround in Washington, DC, Reno and Detroit jazz festivals, and headlining BAMSfest with Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2022, she worn the ISJAC Emerging Black Composers prize, and led a sold-out London tour during the London Jazz Festival, coinciding with her debut EP, Sentient Sounds.
Tickets £12.50 advance/ £18 on the door
16+ (Under 18's to be accompanied by an adult)