Tim Boniface

TIM BONIFACE is a jazz saxophonist and pianist. He is based in Cambridge where he works as a performer, teacher and composer. He is also an ordained priest and theologian, and is Chaplain at Girton College, University of Cambridge.

 Tim has collaborated with a wide array of players on the current UK scene, including recordings with Tara Minton, Polly Gibbons and Phil Merriman amongst others, and fruitful partnerships with vocalist Irene Serra, saxophonist Tony Kofi and pianist James Pearson. As host and pianist of the Sunday Sessions at The Lab in Cambridge and regular house band member at Ashtead Jazz Club and elsewhere, he has played with an accompanied numerous jazz luminaries, including Jo Harrop, Nigel Price, Scott Hamilton, Peter Horsfall, Natalie Williams, Allison Neale, Immy Churchill, Graham Harvey, Germana La Sorsa, Noemi Nutti and others. His Cambridge Jazz Festival gigs with James Pearson, bassist Jeremy Brown and drummers Sophie Alloway and Steve Brown have been sold out weeks in advance. Along with tenor player Sam Miles he holds a jazz residency at the University Arms hotel in Cambridge, often collaborating with acclaimed American guitarist Ted Morcaldi.

Tim is the founding Artistic Director of Girton Jazz, a pioneering jazz education and performance scheme unique in the University of Cambridge, which sees top jazz stars brought into Girton College to give workshops to students and public. He is a performance coach with the the Cambridge University Centre for Music Performance, an performance coach and examiner specialising in jazz with the Cambridge University Faculty of Music, and a freelance teacher and workshop leader. He was an artistic director for St Paul’s Cambridge ArtsFest in 2021 and 2024.

Tim’s compositional work has focussed mainly on jazz suites responding to sacred text, with recordings of The Eight Words (2017) and The Infant (2019) being followed by his most recent release, Psalter: Themes for Peace (2025), which led to the formation of his latest group with James Pearson on piano, bass legend Malcolm Creese on bass, and celebrated drummer Jon Ormston. A commission for St Alban’s Cathedral, this suite for peace premiered in the Cathedral to an audience of over 400, with the band’s celebrated returning gig ‘Jazz in the Moonlight’ bringing over 700 listeners to this ancient space. It was released with Audio-B in July 2025.

Gear

Selmer Balanced Action Tenor Sax

Conn 6M Alto Sax/Selmer Balanced Action Alto Sax

Tags