Meet the 2022 cohort of Future Leaders who we supported via our Beyond The Music initiative.
Adam Laurence
Adam was our BTM intern in 2021. He is interested in working in the live events especially programming & curating events. He also has a passion for connecting disabled people with organisations that want to engage with them.
Adam is an experienced creative professional with over five years of experience in programming, production, coordination and administrative roles in the arts. His experience in programming dates back to 2018 when he founded Search History, a multidisciplinary event and radio series, with the inaugural event during SXSW in Austin, Texas. He is also a founding member of SODAA, a community developing a decentralised governance model for a music and arts venue in London.
Emma Shaw
Emma is an independent singer-songwriter and producer releasing under the stage name emzae. She has been supported by BBC Introducing in the East Midlands and played on 6music. A member of the Attitude is Everything artist network, Emma has spoken on a virtual panel at Wide Days festival about accessibility at gigs. She has also taken part in an audio documentary called Women Make Music.
Emma Wiggin
Emma started her career in artist management nearly 12 years ago and is now the founder of Westwick Management, an artist-led company with an interest in applying new technologies. Emma is hoping to use this interest to bring a more artist-friendly business model to her roster.
Emma has a keen interest in showing people that a career in the music industry is possible as a disabled person.
Gillian Morrison
Gillian has recently graduated with a degree in Music Business. She is currently looking for full time work, and is wanting to explore all areas of the music business. Gillian is specifically interested in the arts the visual side of Music.
Through her work starting and running her own music blog, Music Drawn Badly she is looking to move into music journalism.
She has recently started working on her own artist management, label services and graphic design company, White Crow MGMT. Through White Crow, she managed a local band from Edinburgh called POLLY, as they released their debut album SLUMP in 2022.
Lauren-Rochelle Fernandez
Lauren is an experienced venue manager having worked in hospitality for 6 years. She would like to progress with larger scale live music venues or the operation side of live events.
Lauren has worked in various roles including Assistant Site Office Manager, Staffing Manager and Event Manager for a number of live events across London and the South East.
After receiving diagnoses for both Autism and ADHD at the age of 26, she found a lack of representation, inclusion and culturally appropriate support services available post diagnosis. She aims to change that with her CIC Mask Off.
Louiza Charalambous
Louiza is an aspiring events manager who has a diploma in events management from the Event Academy.
She also undertook the Introduction to Event Production course that Beyond The Music offered it’s network last October. Louiza is passionate about music festivals and ultimately wishes to work in the festival industry. She is currently the Event Co-ordinator and Speakers Operations Manager at Informa Connects.
Maddie Christy
Maddie is the founder of Safe With Sound, a non-profit organisation that creates events designed to make live music accessible for all and spread awareness of the importance of access to the arts.
She specialises in running gigs in grassroots venues and aspires to take her work to bigger venues and festivals.
Maddie also works as a singing teacher, teaching children aged 5-17 singing and performance techniques and inspiring them to write their own music.
Maddie has received a distinction in ‘Disability Equality for the Live Events Industry’ through Falmouth University and wishes to use her training and lived experience to work in access consultancy and events.
Olivia Renshaw
After gaining valuable experience volunteering at Glastonbury Festival with Attitude is Everything, Olivia is pursuing a career in live music access.
Olivia has prior experience in varied access-related roles across the Arts and live events. Her advocacy work began while studying for an MA in creative writing, after finding the poetry scene largely inaccessible. She has since consulted for Verve Poetry Festival, participated in the Access Advisory Board for the Commonwealth Games 2022, and co-curated a webinar on accessible employment for Birmingham Open Media. She completed a Leonard Cheshire/Change 100 internship at the National Gallery London in HR, focusing on access. She recently attained a distinction in Disability Equality Training for Live Events from Falmouth University. She has published an article on Adapted Roller-skating for ‘Not Your Monolith’ magazine.
Shakira Alleyne
Shakira Alleyne is a writer and musician from London. Guided by an experimental ethos, her focus as an artist is to reconnect people with raw emotions and encourage critical questioning. Shakira has have spent many hours honing the technical practice side of her work and is now looking to learn more about the other aspects of the industry.
She has experience in creating PR and marketing campaigns and press release writing for press and radio. Shakira has been involved in various grassroots projects including a Roundhouse residency in 2018 and Brownswood’s talent initiative Future Bubblers in 2020.
She aspires to design accessible workshops for Autistic people with a suspected or late diagnosis.
Sophie Paul
Sophie has a deep love for live music events and has been volunteering for 5 years with us as a peer mentor and Audience Ambassador. She also currently assesses grant applications for Youth Music. Sophie would like to work more in the accessible side of live events with an aim to work full time as an accessibility manager.
Sophie Tennison
Sophie is a member of the National Youth Theatre and Graeae ensemble. She is an active performer. Sophie is also a keen disabled campaigner having worked with Scope through the program Scope for Change. She is currently at university studying music industry management.