With the voice of Liane Carroll singing Johnny Burke’s words to ‘Pennies From Heaven’ the video above shows highlights of last year's Brilliant Corners festival. The festival returns in March

Brian Carson, the Brilliant Corners festival director, has identified just what’s different about the Belfast festival, a four-day affair that represents a sea change on the local jazz scene in the city. “Brilliant Corners 2014 features a plethora of local artists who are bringing something new to the music through original composition and collaboration with contemporaries from home and abroad,” Carson says.

The programme for the festival unveiled exclusively here last week and whose line-up includes GoGo Penguin, David Lyttle band featuring Duke Special and Soweto Kinch, Eduardo Niebla, Paul Dunmall, and the Linley Hamilton quartet, Carson says, “features an eclectic mix of jazz styles and divergences into rap, dub step and even alt. folk! When Moving on Music launched the festival in 2013 we knew there was a niche for such a festival but didn’t quite know what to expect, but the response from local musicians of all hues and the audience was so positive it gave us the heart to do it all again.”

He concludes: “The festival aims to attract a wide listenership and the programme is curated with a variety of tastes in mind while maintaining a forward looking attitude. We are sure that new, inquisitive attenders will not fail to be beguiled by ‘the sounds of surprise’ on offer.”