Carol Jarvis is a trombonist, keyboard player, arranger, orchestrator, musical director, professor, journalist, clinician and presenter.
Early life
Jarvis was born in Northampton, England, and grew up in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, where her mother and father still live. She has an older brother. Jarvis attended Portfields School in Newport Pagnell, and secondary schools Ousedale in Newport Pagnell, Radcliffe in Wolverton, and Stantonbury Campus in Milton Keynes. Her early introductions to music were at the Stantonbury Music Centre, which was later renamed the Milton Keynes Music Centre.
Career
Since graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music with the highest qualifications possible, Jarvis has been in constant demand in all genres of trombone playing and has won many awards including scholarships in the UK and USA. Jarvis often plays guest principal trombone with major Symphony Orchestras throughout the UK and abroad. She does a lot of session work and her playing features on a number of commercial soundtracks to feature films, commercials, jingles and albums. Performances include freelance work with the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and BBC Concert Orchestra, to working with Bon Jovi, Queen and MUSE and touring and recording with the likes of Sting, Michael Bolton and many years on trombone, keys and backing vocals with Seal. Her writing credits include orchestral arrangements for Seal for performances in San Francisco and she was assistant orchestrator on tracks for Corinne Bailey Rae's second album and third albums. Jarvis is a Past-President of the British Trombone Society and is on the Board of Advisors of both the International Trombone Association and International Trombone Festival. She has been a professor of trombone at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music in London since 2006, and has given many masterclasses and recitals across the world.
Health
In October 2004 Jarvis was diagnosed with stage 2a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She began with a standard Chemotherapy course known as ABVD, which failed. She then was treated with high dose Chemotherapy; ESHAP, followed by BEAM, and an autologous stem cell transplant in September 2005. This also failed, so she then underwent an intense 3 week course of Radiotherapy to the tumours between her lungs. This also failed, so Jarvis then signed up for a clinical trial for a new experimental antibody drug that was being tested for people with Hodgkin’s disease. This also failed, but some response enabled some time to recover, ready for more treatment. In between her Seal and Sting tours at the end of 2009 Jarvis signed up to another experimental drug called CHT25. This also failed, so she then had four months of Gemcitabine chemotherapy, which showed some response. Jarvis then had a course of a trial drug called SGN-35 whilst touring around the world with Seal in 2011. A PET scan after the fourth dose showed that Jarvis was finally in a metabolic remission. This drug has now been FDA approved, and been given the name ‘Adcetris’. Two more doses of this proceeded whilst searches began to find Jarvis a donor for an allogeneic bone marrow transplant. A 12/12 match was found on the Anthony Nolan Register, she began the intensive chemotherapy in September 2011, received her donor’s cells on 21 September 2011 and has continued to receive clear scan results ever since. It took over two years post-transplant for Jarvis’ blood type to change across to her donor’s type, so she had to have blood transfusions every two weeks during this time, with even more chemotherapy treatments, bone marrow biopsies and tests in between. However, her health battles are now complete, along with her DNA also changing over to match that of her donor. Jarvis kept a blog throughout her bone marrow transplant and is currently writing a book. Throughout Jarvis’ nine years of treatment she has been extremely active with many different Cancer charities, including for the Christie Hospital, where she was treated.
Awards
- President's Award 2013 Brass Herald - Brass Personality of the Year 2004 Royal Over-Seas League Competition 2001 Rio Tino Prize and Miller Trophy 2001 Agnes D Bell Scholarship 2000 Dorothy Lily Pope Scholarship 2000 British Trombone Society/Jiggs Whigham Scholarship to study in America 1999 Goronwy Evans Brass Prize 1998 Sema Group Jazz Improvisation Award 1998 Buckinghamshire County Music Scholarship 1990
