The Horniman Museum and Gardens has selected three new south London artists to take up its Musician in Residence programme.
The chosen trio will each spend six months using the Forest Hill museum’s Musical Instrument collection to help them create new work.
Their music will be showcased in a series of live concerts at the Horniman. ‘Hear it Live!’, a ‘work in progress performance’, will take place on Thursday, September 7.
The first three Musicians in Residence to be appointed are Bloomer, from Thornton Heath, Pouya Ehsaei from Peckham and Shola from Lewisham.
Bloomer (Faith-Melody Ramautar) is a singer, producer and hair artist who grew up singing in Pentecostal gospel churches.
She is drawn to bold and unusual expressions of culture, seeing the spiritual “in the accidental and the unexpected”.
Pouya Ehsaei is a musician, producer, sound artist and radio host working with electronic hardware including mixing desks, synthesisers and FX units.
He has a talent for bringing together different styles in the spirit of fusion, synthesis, radicalism and experimentalism.
Shola (Shola Dayo) is an Afro-fusion, Amapiano and Afro-house producer working with artists in the UK and Nigeria.
A talented music producer and digital synthesiser with an eye for detail, she hopes to motivate a future generation of female producers in the local area.
These musicians will work with the Horniman’s Youth Engagement Producer, Rudi Schmidt and Assistant Curator of Musical Collections and Cultures, Saava Benjamin Busenze Balagadde to create new music, live performances and community engagement workshops.
They will also appoint their own digital creatives to create visual content, bringing their music to life.
There will be a call-out for the second round of the Musicians in Residence programme in early 2024.