Jazz Poetry: Matthew Kilner, Jo Gilbert and Mae Diansangu

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Blue Lamp
121 Gallowgate
Aberdeen
AB25 1BU

Were collaborating with Jazz at the Blue Lamp to bring you an exciting evening which fuses together spoken word and jazz improvisation. Celebrated Aberdeen poets Jo Gilbert (WTF is Normal Anyway?) and Mae Diansangu (Bloodsongs) will be accompanied by live music from award-winning saxophonist and event hostMatthew Kilner, drummer Greg Irons and pianist Neil Birse in this festival first!

Jo Gilbert is a spoken word artist and writer from Aberdeen. Their work has been widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies and was featured on BBC Radio 4. Past projects and commissions include StAnza Poetry Festival, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Look Again Festival, the National Theatre of Scotland, Aberdeen Performing Arts. Jos poem Speirin was commissioned as one of the Scottish Poetry Librarys Burns Night Skies feature in 2025 and they are currently working on their second collection The Department of Stuff and Things due out with Seahorse Publications late 2025.

Mae Diansangu's debut poetry collection, Bloodsongs (Tapsalteerie), shifts between English and North East Scots, creating a passionate and distinctly Scottish ode to queerness and blackness, and evoking how these aspects of experience are felt through the body. Mae won the 2025 Loud Poets Aberdeen Slam and is also renowned for her drag king persona, Uncle Tony.

Matthew Kilneris an award-winning saxophonist who released his debut album, The Space in Between , in March 2025. He regularly performs at festivals and jazz clubs around the UK and abroad including Ronnie Scotts in London, Birmingham's Symphony Hall and the 2023 Regensburg Jazz Festival. In 2019, Matthew won the prestigious Ogston Performance Prize whilst attending the University of Aberdeen, and in 2023, he reached the final of BBC Radio Scotlands Young Jazz Musician of the Year competition.

  • Dates & Booking

    Oct. 02, 2025 7:30pm

    Book now
  • Ticket Info

    Standard - £10.00

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