MY BIO

 

Press Quotes: 

 

"Pianist Roella Oloro graced the stage of Ronnie Scott’s on late Saturday evening to a sold-out show The trio’s performance was intricate, energised and of the highest order, which gives us something to look forward to with Roella’s next visit back to London, the sooner the better." - UK Jazz News

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"Roella Oloro’s spellbinding performance captures the hope and pathos of “When You Believe”, originally sung by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.”  - Financial Times

 

 

Roella Oloro is a multi-instrumentalist and composer originally from Gloucester, UK with Nigerian and Jamaican Heritage. She has performed worldwide and written music in a variety of styles ranging from trio and quartet instrumentation to Jazz and Symphonic orchestra. She graduated Magna Cum Laude in May 2023 from Berklee College of Music where she studied for 4 years on a full tuition scholarship. She has also recently obtained a Master’s Degree at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in June 2024. So far in, 2026 she has performed at a number of high profile venues in New York City and State including at the Lincoln Centre, for Jazz Forum Arts in Tarrytown, NY and  debuted at the Legendary Blue Note Jazz club with high-energy British afro-jazz band "Steamdown." 

 

In Fall 2025 she completed a US/UK tour with her trio where she performed in NY, Connecticut and Boston in the US and The Stroud Goodshed, The Royal Albert Hall, The Ned and at Templeton Gardens for Brave Poets in the UK. Early 2024 she performed with her trio and tenor saxophonist Mary Orji's band on the Bands at NAMM stages at the Hilton Hotel and the Grand Plaza. In May 2024 she went on a mini-tour to Panama with the Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors led by Danilo Perez, pianistic prodigy, artistic director and founder of the Global Institute and Panama Jazz Festival. 

 

In 2023, Roella performed with her piano trio at the NAMM show in Anaheim, California and at Capitol Turnaround in Washington DC as a featured artist of the SHEROCKS 2023 showcase. Pianistically,  she has represented Berklee's Jazz and Gender Justice Institute at the RENO JAZZ FESTIVAL, the Detroit Jazz Festival Collegiate competition,  and headlined with Terri-Lyne Carrington's band as part of BAMSfest 2023.

 

In May 2022, she won the ISJAC (International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers) prize for Emerging Black Composers. She traveled to Austin, Texas to accept the award and perform with the 17-piece jazz orchestra that was provided. In November 2022, Roella booked and completed a London Mini-tour with her trio from Berklee that coincided with the London Jazz Festival. The 3 biggest of the 5 show dates; The Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, a Late Late Show at Ronnie Scott’s and a lunch-time show at The Pizza Express Soho were all sold out. The tour also coincided with the release of her first EP ,"Sentient Sounds." When she returned to the United States after her mini-tour, her original composition” La Voyage de La Rivière,” for Wind Orchestra was debuted by the Berklee Symphonic Winds Orchestra with Roella conducting at the Berklee Performance Centre during their Fall 2022 concert, “Colours.”

 

Whilst at Berklee, Roella has received tutelage from exceptional professors such as NEA Jazz Masters Terri Lyne-Carrington, Joanne Brackeen and Grammy nominated saxophonist Tia Fuller. In Spring 2022, she studied with Esperanza Spalding at Harvard as part of Spalding's Black Improvisational Music and Dance class. One of her most notable Berklee opportunities, was performing with Berklee's Jazz and Gender Justice Institute on WGBH’s “Basic Black" TV show in Fall 2019.” In Summer 2019, through the aid of the Tomorrow’s Warriors organisation based in London, she crowd-fundraised £23,000 to transfer from London’s Trinity Laban conservatoire to start studying at Berklee, USA. That summer, she also performed with Tomorrow’s Warriors’ founder Gary Crosby at Buckingham palace for his OBE award.

 

Over the course of the pandemic, she was a BBC Young Musician 2020 Semi-finalist, a Jazz South UK grant recipient, appeared on Decca Records’, “Alone Together” Jazz piano album, on British TV as part of “Jazz 625, the British Jazz Explosion” and released her first single entitled “Sacrificial Lamb”.