Music Promoter

Alexandra is a Live Music Promoter at one of the UK's leading gig promoters, Metropolis Music, part of the conglomerate of live music giants, Live Nation Entertainment. A Business Management and Leadership graduate she also heads up Diversity Employee Resource Group, starting EMBRACE Nation at Live Nation UK - a cultural hub striving towards racial equality in and outside the work place becoming a learning hub for ALL Live Nation Entertainment employees . Alexandra also works across The End Festival, Somerset House, The F List (director), Black Music Coalition and UNICEF Music Group.

Box Office Manager & Singer

Sam is the Box Office Manager at the Dominion Theatre, and lead singer in Hyde Project. 

Poet

Craig Bradley aka That Poetry Bloke is a children's performance poet and musician. He used to be a stand up comedian and uses all the skills he learned doing that to engage, inspire and entertain the young poets he meets in schools. You can watch him perform A Walk in the Woods by clicking here. 

Writer & Student

Scarlett Brunning studies English Literature at Durham University. She was KEHS Poet Laureate and has developed and delivered poetry workshops for children in Key Stage 2. Scarlett is also working on her first novel.

Section Leader Horn, CBSO

Elspeth studied  at  Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied with Richard Bissill, Hugh Seenan and Jeff Bryant. She was on trial for 1st horn at RLPO at the same time as her trial with CBSO during her last term at GSMD. She says “these trials were my first professional work along with a concert with the LSO playing offstage for about 6 bars!” As Section leader horn Elspeth’s highlights to-date include playing Ein Heldenleben at the Lucerne Festival with Simon Rattle as part of her trial – “a pretty special concert”.

Poet and spoken word artist

Spoz is an award winning performance poet, singer/songwriter, film maker, playwright and was the poet-in-residence at Birmingham City FC. He has been seen on BBC and Central Television, has written for and been heard on BBC Radio Four, Radio Five Live, Radio West Midlands, Radio Coventry & Warwickshire and Capital Gold. He has performed at the Glastonbury Festival, Shambala Festival, Larmer Tree Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival

Poet

Jasmine Gardosi is a multiple slam champion, Birmingham Poet Laureate finalist and recent winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry. Jasmine uses audience participation, beatboxing and manipulation of voice and body in order to explore LGBTQ+ issues, sex education and mental health. Her work has appeared on Button Poetry, at the Tate Modern, Glastonbury Festival, and across BBC Radio, including BBC Radio 3's The Verb, Radio 4 and BBC Asian Network.

Solo Percussionist 

Dame Evelyn Glennie is the world’s premier solo percussionist, performing worldwide with the greatest orchestras, conductors and artists. Her solo recordings exceed 40 CDs and are as diverse as her career on-stage. A double GRAMMY award winner and BAFTA nominee, Evelyn is also a composer for film, theatre and television. Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and has over 100 international awards to date, including the Polar Music Prize and the Companion of Honour. Evelyn is currently forming The Evelyn Glennie Collection with a vision to open a centre that embodies her mission to Teach the World to Listen. 

https://youtube.com/user/DameEvelynGlennie

Musician & Professor

Janice Graham is currently the Leader and Artistic Director of English Sinfonia. Previous Leader of the ENO orchestra, Leader of BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Assistant Leader of the London Symphony Orchestra. Janice has recorded the sound tracks for many films and TV and studied at the Purcell School and the GSMD where she is currently a professor.

Here you can watch Janice perform on Strictly Come Dancing (BBC),  playing for Vincent and Flavia as they dance a Tango Waltz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQCnXeOvedI

Senior Promoter

Sam is a senior promoter at Live Nation Entertainment in the Cuffe & Taylor touring division. As a senior promoter Sam works across all Cuffe and Taylor's UK theatre tours as well as London dates for major artists and international tours. Artists & Productions include: Lea Salonga, John Barrowman, A Question of Sport Live, Sarah Brightman, Marisha Wallace  and KIDZ BOP.  

Musician

Cait graduated from The University of Wolverhampton, with a first class honours degree in music and in 2018, she has gained ‘Outstanding’ teacher status through The Sutton Park Alliance. She is a classically trained singer which came from being a girl chorister at Lichfield Cathedral School, which is where she now works as a teacher of Music and Drama. She also enjoys organising and leading massed charity concerts and loves working at the global theatre company, Stagecoach and has done so since 2013. Cait loves teaching and is passionate about passing her love for music and passing this onto the students she teaches.

Singer, Songwriter & Producer

Mr Hudson is a British musician from Birmingham. First rose to prominence in 2006 with the band Mr Hudson and the Library, which toured with Amy Winehouse on the Back To Black tour, played on Jools Holland and opened for The Police. Hudson embarked on a solo career in 2008, when he signed a record deal with Kanye West's GOOD Music. He worked on West's 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and appeared on Jay-Z’s  Young Forever, from The Blueprint 3 (2009). He would find more solo success on his 2009 album Straight No Chaser, which spawned the hit single Supernova.  Since 2010 Hudson has been writing and producing for many artists, including Miley Cyrus, Idris Elba, Duran Duran, Future, DJ Snake, JP Cooper, Jake Shears and most recently in 2020, John Legend with the song Never Break which features on Legend's latest album Bigger Love.

Bantu Practitioner

Bantu Arts is an entertainment and production organisation that specialises in African arts through music, dance and drama.

Music director, arranger, & composer

Alex Lacamoire is an award-winning music director, arranger, and composer. He is best known for his work on Broadway's critically-acclaimed shows​ Hamilton​,​ Dear Evan Hansen​, and ​In The Heights​. Altogether, he has won three Tonys for Best Orchestrations, three Grammys for Best Musical Theater Album, an additional Grammy for producing​ The Greatest Showman soundtrack, 3 Olivier Awards for his orchestrations and most recently, an Emmy for Outstanding Music Direction for his work in FX’s mini-series ​Fosse/Verdon.​He was also the recipient of a first-of-its-kind Kennedy Center Honors for his contribution to​ Hamilton.​ Lacamoire and the Hamilton creative team were honored as the “trailblazing creators of a transformative work that defies category” — a distinction never before awarded by the arts institution.

Animateur

Catherine is Director of Music Outreach at Lichfield Cathedral school and runs a singing programme for schools funded currently by The Arts' Council via The Music Partnership (hub for Staffs, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford etc).

Electroacoustic Composer

Annie is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer. Her output encompasses electronic music composition from acousmatic music to free improvisation. As a collaborator, Annie Mahtani has worked extensively with dance and theatre, and on site-specific installations. With a strong interest in field recording, her work often explores the inherent sonic nature and identity of environmental sound, amplifying sonic characteristics that are not normally audible to the naked ear. Her music explores abstract and recognizable sound worlds and all the spaces in between. Her music has been recognized and performed extensively in concerts and festivals internationally and she was the recipient of a mention at the 35th Bourges international Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art Competition (France, 2008). She has received a number of notable commissions including those from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Jazzlines, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham Hippodrome, and Rosie Kay Dance Company (for which she is the Company composer). Annie Mahtani is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Birmingham. She is co-director of SOUNDkitchen, a Birmingham-based collective of curators, producers and performers of live electronic music and sound art.

Drummer, The Stranglers

As the live drummer for legendary UK punk/new wave band The Stranglers, Jim has played on multiple tours and live recordings all over the world including major festivals, radio sessions and live and pre-recorded TV appearances. The band recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and will be touring extensively around the world in 2016/17.

Music Therapist

Melody is a music therapist working in the Midlands. As part of her job, she works in lots of different schools with children and teenagers. Melody play's the flute and the piano and is also a singer. She has a Masters degree in music therapy from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Birmingham. 

Opera Singer

Felicity is a freelance opera singer, soprano, who has travelled all over the world singing in some of the greatest operas in the most beautiful venues.

Beatboxer 

Rupert is the CEO of the UK Beatboxing Championships and a member of The Beatbox Collective. 

​

Musician & music director

As a multi-genre chamber musician, orchestral pianist and music director, Yshani has performed at venues including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Barbican Theatre and various West End Theatres. She has performed at events including the Oxford Lieder Festival, Kammer Klang and Live at the London Palladium and with such varied artists as City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mahogany Opera and Nina Conti. She is pianist of the Del Mar Piano Trio and Carismático Tango Band.

Music Producer

Andy Savours trained under Alan Moulder and Flood at Assault & Battery Studios for 7 years, which put him in the engineering hot seat early on with projects including SIGUR ROS, THE HORRORS, THE ARCTIC MONKEYS and THE KILLERS. After branching out on his own he engineered MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s long awaited follow up to ‘Loveless’, ‘mbv’ the ‘see my friends‘ album for RAY DAVIES plus added programming on GOLDFRAPP’S Silver Eye Album. He established himself as a mixer with clients such as ROISIN MURPHY, PNAU and THE KILLS and went on to produce records for THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, CLOUD BOAT, MR HUDSON, OUR GIRL and THE MAGIC GANG. Recently Andy produced, engineered and mixed the critically lauded debut record for BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD, ‘For the first time’. His new electronic project FRERE recently released their ‘Big Hug’ EP. He is also one half of the electronic folk duo MALPAS, who released their debut album, ‘Rain River Sea’, on Killing Moon Records, and YEBO Records in the US.

Musician, Actor & Director

‘Virtuoso of the arts' (The Times), Matthew Sharp, has performed worldwide as solo cellist, baritone, actor and director: solo appearances with the RPO, LPO, RLPO, CBSO; singing principal roles for the Royal Opera House and Opera North; acting principal roles at the Young Vic and National Theatre Studio; directing for the BBC and Opera North. From Glastonbury to Glyndebourne, the Sydney Opera House to Ronnie Scott’s, he has worked with an extraordinary spectrum of leading artists from Sir John Tavener to Marta Eggert to Dave McKean to Caryl Churchill. His own music and theatre works have toured to major festivals globally. He has given over sixty world premieres and recorded for Sony, EMI, Decca, Naxos, Somm, NMC, Avie and Whirlwind. www.matthewsharp.net

Musical Supervisor, Musical Director, Arranger & Orchestrator 

Theatre credits as Musical Supervisor, Arranger, Orchestrator or Musical Director include: Hairspray (London Coliseum); The Boy in the Dress (Royal Shakespeare Company); Evita (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park); Big Fish (The Other Palace); Disney’s Aladdin (Prince Edward Theatre); Funny Girl (Menier Chocolate Factory, Savoy Theatre, UK Tour & Cinema broadcast); A Damsel in Distress (Chichester Festival Theatre); Assassins (Menier Chocolate Factory); Urinetown (St James Theatre & Apollo Theatre); The Commitments (Palace Theatre & UK Tour); A Chorus Line (London Palladium); Shrek (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, UK tour & Australia); The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee & Passion (Donmar Warehouse); Monty Python’s Spamalot (Palace Theatre); Eric’s (Liverpool Everyman); Little Shop of Horrors (West Yorkshire Playhouse).