Contemporary Music Proms 2022

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PROMS 2022: PROM 3

Sunday 24th July saw the third and final Contemporary Music Prom of 2022 at the beautiful AMP Studios with 11 acts on 2 stages and it was a truly magical day and evening. We had stellar performances from Digital Roses; That Which Crawls; Mistral Quartet; Steven Ball; Marilyn Wyers; Debbie Newton & Tom Smith; Yiskah; David Zucchi & Ian Wadley; Zheng Hao; Roger Harmar and Laura Hills. The decision to have the Vanishing Point stage in its usual arch and the Trust The Doc stage outside in the roof-covered courtyard proved to be a very good one and the atmosphere was wonderful. Huge thanks to our sound engineer and music legend Donald Ross Skinner; to the wonderful staff at AMP Studios; to Mavlin and Kris who sold delicious Indian, Greek and US-style food all day; to Paul F Cook for his outstanding art and design work; to all the artists and to an amazing supportive audience. Huge thanks also to the Arts Council of England and The National Lottery UK whose generosity in providing funding for this event allowed me to pay the artists properly for their performances and have the means to organise, market and deliver this amazing event. It is now confirmed that there will be a Contemporary Music Proms 2023. The Facebook Group name has duly been changed with the year removed since the aim of creating a permanent cultural legacy in Lewisham Borough has been achieved.

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PROMS 2022: PROM 2

Sunday 19th June saw the second Contemporary Music Prom of 2022 take place at the beautiful AMP Studios with wonderful performances by Alien Alarms; Sothiac ft Paul Jolly; Two Wheels ft Javier Ortega; Rosie Bergonzi; Paul Taylor; The Music Of Sound; Cape Verde Battuko; Sofia Gillani; Florie Namir; Ric Graebner; Mono Works and Nathan Persad. A large and lovely audience came along and enjoyed the sunny weather, beautiful food and drink and mix of merchandise while being entertained by a richly diverse range of artists. In terms of ethnic and national backgrounds, every continent on the planet was represented with perhaps the most extraordinary performance, and certainly the most talked about, coming from the Cape Verde Battuko (pictured below) group with their children introducing the tracks. They whipped up a joyful storm of drums, sounds and voices. Once again, we had everything from classical to world to electronic and experimental and plenty of stops in-between. All in all an uplifting and inspirational experience.

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PROMS 2022: PROM 1

The first Contemporary Music Prom took place on 15th May 2022. No-one could have predicted the events we would be up against on the day. Firstly, despite weather forecasts of sunshine and decent Spring temperatures, it rained all day and, despite the roof-covered courtyard offering shelter even in the open air part of the venue, it put a lot of people off. Despite this the day began with a big crowd watching inspiring performances from a number of bands brought along by Habersashers Hatcham College with students aged 12 – 18 performing in the afternoon’s opening slot. But then one of the food vendors had to rush to hospital when his assistant fell and injured herself and the other simply failed to show. Faced with a hungry audience who were leaving in their droves, emergency action had to be taken to buy in a load of supplies and organise volunteers to help sell food to those who stayed. Thankfully, by early evening, audience numbers had swelled again and those who got to play later in the day had good crowds to play to. But I felt for those who were on in the middle of the day and only had around 40 watching them. Nevertheless everyone stepped up and we had stellar performances from Haberdashers Hatcham College; Soricah; Trishala Sridar; Phil Hollins; Birikiti; Rookery Ensemble; Shayne Dalva; Kamura Obscura and Gabrielle Sey (pictured below).

Here are some images from all three proms to remind us all of what a fantastic event it has been with fantastic performances from all the artists who performed across the three Sundays (15th May, 19th June, 24th July) and supportive, enthusiastic audiences who helped make the atmosphere so special.