The Vibe Lounge is brought to you by The Vibe Collective, to offer an informal, and accessible introduction to the world of live music, highlighting emerging talent and giving visitors another reason to make a night of their visit to Turner Sims.

The Vibe Collective is a group of young creatives from Southampton aged 18-25. The Vibe Lounge is part of The Vibe’s exciting portfolio of youth-focused initiatives, working with young people and celebrating Southampton’s dynamic music scene.

Both Vibe Lounge events are free of charge, but tickets are required.

Amelia

I joined the Vibe Collective as I wanted to broaden my horizons from poetry and writing out into the music scene. I have always been a fan of classical and jazz music, having played instruments all my life, and this opportunity felt like a great space to connect with other young people and to learn about music, producing and Turner Sims as an organisation.

Sasha

I joined the Vibe Collective to gain experience in all stages of event organisation, from behind-the-scenes festival work to outreach and community engagement. Inspired by how my master’s work connects performers, audiences and people seeking new experiences, I want to help create events that go beyond *Vibe* itself and explore narrative and participatory engagement practices. I hope the Vibe Collective will continue to bring people together through inclusive, meaningful events that encourage participation and strengthen community connections.

Jacob

I joined the Vibe Collective to learn new skills and share my love of arts. I hope we can uplift and connect people with the events we put on.

Pietra

I joined the Vibe because it is really a vibe! As well as gaining insights into how events are programmed and marketed and putting these ideas into practice, we get to work with fantastic people too. I’m hoping to learn as much as I can about managing music venues and knowing about all the steps taken to go from the idea to the event.

Daniel

I joined the Vibe Collective because I am passionate about music and event organisation. I have had experience putting on my own DJ-based events, but I love all kinds of music and want to understand how to put on a good show, not just in a club, but also a concert hall setting. I look forward to working with like-minded people who want to make people moved and joyous by live music!

The Vibe Collective is supported by University of Southampton via Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) from Research England.

Nick Thorne, Co-Chair of the Strategic Board, said: “These appointments come at an important moment for Turner Sims. We are pleased to welcome five highly accomplished individuals whose experience spans arts leadership, audience development, communications, business and governance. Their insight, expertise and networks will strengthen the Board as we support Turner Sims in delivering its artistic ambitions, deepening its public impact and building a sustainable future.” 

Andy Cato is an aerospace professional specialising in project management, business development and research and technology. A lifelong arts enthusiast, he volunteers with SoundCellar Poole and brings commercial expertise, community experience and a passion for modern British jazz. 

Bav Dhanda has 22 years’ experience in marketing and brings strategic insight, creativity and a strong understanding of audiences and communities. Passionate about Southampton, she is a committed advocate for the transformative power of live music and performance. 

Mark Bamping is Director of Marketing & Communications at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he also leads corporate partnerships. He previously worked at the London Symphony Orchestra and Aurora Orchestra, and is a music graduate of the University of Southampton. 

Sara Lock is the Director of Audiences at Wiltshire Creative, where she leads marketing and audience development strategies. Sara was formerly Head of Arts Marketing Communications at University of Southampton, Turner Sims. She brings 20 years of experience marketing southwest venues and is passionate about the power of communications to include people.

Dr Tony Stoller CBE is Chair of the Winchester Chamber Music Festival and a former Chair of Orchestras Live. A Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University and former broadcasting regulator, he is the author of Classical Music in the United Kingdom, 1945 to 1995. 

Louise Coysh, Director of Turner Sims, said: “We are delighted to welcome Andy, Bav, Mark, Sara and Tony to the Strategic Board. Each brings exceptional expertise and a shared belief in the power of music to enrich lives and strengthen communities. Their insight and experience will be invaluable as we grow our impact, build new partnerships and shape the future of Turner Sims. I look forward to working with them to ensure Turner Sims remains an ambitious, inclusive and thriving cultural organisation for Southampton and the wider region.”

The appointments mark an important step in Turner Sims’ development, bringing fresh perspectives and extensive experience to its leadership as it continues to build an inclusive world through the joy of music. 

Turner Sims is part of the University of Southampton (an exempt charity) and a National Portfolio Organisation funded by Arts Council England.

About Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Prince of Venosa

The Guardian feature by Bill Barclay

Carlo Gesualdo wrote some of the most darkly sublime music of the late Renaissance. He also savagely murdered his wife and her lover in their bed. Now be honest: which would you like to discuss first? 

The art will always be secondary to the atrocity, however magnificent the madrigals and sacred music. Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, had been cuckolded by the Duke of Andria in a long-running tryst that had become the scuttlebutt at court. The premeditated double murder of 1590 was a truly grisly affair, concluding in the public display of their mutilated bodies on the steps of the palazzo for several days. 

Gesualdo’s biography is often reduced to this act, yet his own end, too, was harrowing. Twenty years on, the prince had retreated to his estate to indulge in a life of ritualistic agony, reportedly employing servants to beat him thrice daily to ease sleep and constipation. This domestic nightmare included the presence of two concubines accused by his second wife of witchcraft against him. Their ghoulish testimonies, elicited under torture, suggest a household that had descended into a gothic psychosis.’ 

Gesualdo’s reputation as a composer centres on his haunting madrigals – not for him the sunlit, pastoral ones of Thomas Morely. His six books of secular madrigals, and the powerful end of life sacred work ‘Tenebrae Responsoria’, are captivating, revealing dissonance and jarring harmonies that pushed the polyphony to its emotional extremes. Characteristics which saw his revival in the 20th century when figures like Igor Stravinsky became enamoured with his sound world.

“Barclay has assembled a fantastic team for this production and it shows…Owain Park…coaxes the singers to extract every atom of anguish and exquisite melancholy from the composer’s work…another fantastically thought-provoking experiment from the Gesualdo Six, that will no doubt expand audiences for their namesake’s shocking, otherworldly vision. A dark treat for sombre times.” – Rachel Halliburton, The Arts Desk, 19 January 2026

About Bill Barclay 

Director, writer, and composer Bill Barclay has created dozens of theatrical concerts with the world’s most prominent ensembles. He is Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and was Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe (from 2012-2019). 

Major tours include ‘The Chevalier‘ (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Center, Tanglewood, Chautauqua, Music of the Baroque, Harlem Chamber Players, Caramoor, Snape Maltings, Buffalo, Virginia, Indianapolis); ‘Secret Byrd‘ for The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork (30+ cities on tour); Anthony & Cleopatra (LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony); ‘Peer Gynt‘ (Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras); and ‘Markus Passion‘ for Oregon Bach Festival, Dunedin Consort & The Sebastians (NYC, Pittsburgh, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Portland, Seattle, Eugene, Chicago).  He has been commissioned five times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, appearing across nine seasons. 

Other projects include directing the Silkroad Ensemble on tour, ‘Beyond Beethoven 9’ for Marin Alsop, Romeo & Juliet and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for Andris Nelsons, ‘L’Histoire du Soldat’ for Charles Dutoit, ‘Four Seasons Reimagined’ for Max Richter and puppeteers Gyre & Gimble, and ‘1791: Mozart’s Last Year’ for Gianandrea Noseda and The National Symphony Orchestra. 

As a composer, Barclay composed the historic ‘Hamlet Globe-to-Globe ‘which toured to 189 countries, and ‘Call of the Wild’ that performed in 42 US states. He has composed three times for the British Royal Family, for President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Calais. 

His newest work ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ premiered with The Brodsky Quartet at The Aldeburgh Festival before performances at Lincoln Center and Tanglewood. He regularly appears in major international festivals in Kilkenny, Spoleto, Lammermuir, Edinburgh, Death of Classical, Chelsea, Oxford, Bath, Teatro a Mil, Perth, Canterbury, Aldebugh, and many others. 

About Gesualdo Six 

The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble directed by Owain Park. Through imaginative programming, exceptional musicianship and a spirit of curiosity, the group has established itself as one of the world’s foremost vocal ensembles, performing more than 100 concerts each year across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia. 

About Miles Davis’s music

Miles Davis was Stuart Hall’s favourite musician, famously describing Davis’s music on Desert Island Discs as representing “the sound of what cannot be”. Director John Akomfrah used Davis’s shifting musical styles over the decades to track the political and cultural changes that Hall lived through. The music acts as an emotional and sonic map of the 20th century, mirroring Hall’s own complex ideas on race, identity, and the diaspora. As the music evolves from the cool jazz of the late 1950s into the avant-garde and electric fusion of the late 1960s and 1970s, it mirrors the shifting political landscapes, global upheavals, and the birth of youth counterculture.

About Tomorrow’s Warriors and the Nu Civilisation Orchestra

Brainchild of Tomorrow’s Warriors Artistic Director Dr Gary Crosby OBE, Nu Civilisation Orchestra (NCO) is a world class professional jazz orchestra. NCO was initially established in 2008 as ‘Tomorrow’s Warriors Jazz Orchestra’ to provide a platform for one of Gary’s most talented protégés – pianist/composer, Peter Edwards. The goal was to recreate Duke Ellington’s exquisite, yet rarely performed, ‘The Queen’s Suite’. The piece was met with such enthusiasm from audiences and musicians alike that Crosby felt compelled to establish the Orchestra as a permanent ensemble.

Since then, NCO has built a reputation for excellence and diversity in its members, its repertoire and its artistic collaborations; a shapeshifting ensemble that reinvents itself with every project.

NCO has performed widely across the UK, including a BBC Proms debut in 2019 and a major 2021 national tour celebrating Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’. The Orchestra has delivered acclaimed reinterpretations of Ellington’s ‘Queen’s Suite’, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hejira and Mingus’, Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’, and Stan Getz’s ‘Focus’ with saxophonist Nubya Garcia.  

Recent highlights include collaborations with Clod Ensemble on Mingus’ ‘The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady’, joining Chaka Khan at the Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival, and performing with Arthur Verocai at the Barbican. 

Book your ticket for Nu Civilisation Orchestra: The Stuart Hall Project on Saturday 3 October here

Why is it important to you that children and young people engage with live music?

Music has always been very important to me and sitting in the middle of orchestras and ensembles was always such a special experience for me, one I wanted to try and replicate with MishMash. Giving our audiences a similar experience of connecting, up close and personal, with the music and musicians. I was also very passionate about ensuring audiences felt welcome accessing all types of music; and that’s not always the case. There are some genres of music, and Western Classical music is one of them, that a lot of people feel excluded from and feel like it’s ‘not for them’. And I really want to counter that and bring warm and welcoming experiences of live classical music that enable audiences to make their own minds up and feel welcome in those spaces.

As a company, what do you enjoy about coming to Turner Sims?

We love coming to Turner Sims! Jessica and the team are such champions for music and especially work for children, young people, families and schools. We share very similar values, particularly in how much we care about our audiences, which makes working together a dream. It helps that the hall is also beautiful to play in!

The next performance you are bringing to Turner Sims is ‘Fishing for Haiku’, tell us about this performance and what audience should be looking forward to.

I don’t really want to give much away but ‘Fishing for Haiku’ is such a dream of a show. It’s beautiful and clever but also extremely silly. And we think silliness is really important and sometimes much overlooked! It features such a lovely range of music from contemporary classical to folk music to improvisation to singing frogs…… and Joanna and Suzanne are amazing performers. In short it’s perfect for lovers of great music, and of poetry, friendship, make believe and play!

Book tickets for Fishing for Haiku on Saturday 17 October here.

Why now?

It’s an exciting time for Turner Sims, we are undergoing significant building works in our venue to improve disabled access, across front of house and backstage, to benefit our artists, audiences and staff. This partnership with Unlimited is part of our long-term commitment to improve access across all areas of our work – including the artists we support and present on our stage.

What kind of artist or company are you looking to work with on this commission? 

Our Partner Award is for £15,000 to develop a research and development piece for young audiences. We are looking for a disabled artist, or disabled-led company, who wants to develop a new creative piece with music at its core, but may also want to include other art forms like theatre, dance, spoken word or visual design.

We would like the piece to have the potential to be performed at Turner Sims however we are open to artists being creative about how they use the space. Our auditorium has a capacity of around 350 and a large flat stage without any wings. The artists might want to perform on stage with the audience sat in the auditorium seats, or they might want to create something small and intimate where the audience sit on stage, or take a much more site-specific approach using different spaces in the building.

We are looking for artists who want to make work for children and young people aged between 7 and 16 years old, although the piece might not cover that whole age range. The artists might choose 7-11 years or 11-16 years, for example. We want the artists to be working directly with children and young people in Southampton and/or Hampshire to be part of the creative process for this commission. Previous experience of working with children and young people is preferred, but not essential.

And ultimately, Turner Sims and Unlimited are looking for disabled artists who are ambitious, innovative and have a really strong idea!

If you are interested in applying, there is a lot of helpful information on the Unlimited website and there are some information sessions in August and September that you can sign up for.

How will Turner Sims support the artist or company that are commissioned?

As well as providing funding for the commission, Turner Sims will work closely with the artist to support them. We will have regular meetings to check in and see how things are going, we will give access to our sound technician and lighting technician to allow you to explore ideas, we will provide a workshop with our Head of Marketing and Sales to plan promotion and we will support you in making plans for workshops and engagement with children and young people in Southampton and/or Hampshire as part of a co-creation process. We know if can be really important for artists to document their process, so we will provide a professional photographer for half a day. At the end of the project, we will host an informal sharing of the research and development project at Turner Sims.

What impact do you hope the Partner Award will have?

I hope that this commission will enable a disabled artist, or disabled led company, to start developing some really remarkable work for children and young people, and that we can use our time, resources and expertise at Turner Sims to support them to do that. This commission, along with the physical changes we are making to our building through our Estates project, mark a big step change in how we support and present disabled artists at Turner Sims, I hope the partnership with Unlimited will help us to embed this into the culture of our organisation and raise our ambition for what we can achieve in the future.

If you are an artist interested in applying for any of the awards there is lots of information, including a list of FAQs, on the Unlimited website.  

What was it like working with Rahul Nadkarni while curating this tour? Was integrating field recordings a new experience in your work as a musician?

Working with Rahul changed the way I think about what a musical instrument actually is. He goes to places most of us never think to listen to: underground, into ecosystems, into environments teeming with sound, and brings those sounds back with extraordinary care. He has a field recordist’s precision and a musician’s ear, and that combination is rare.

What drew me to working at this depth was a growing curiosity about the hidden languages of nature. The waggle dance: the way bees choreograph precise information for an entire colony is just one example of how much intelligence and communication exists in the world around us, completely beyond our normal perception. Rahul’s recordings open that world up. Integrating them at this level was new for me, and it fundamentally shifted how I think about composition. The natural world isn’t a backdrop to this music – it’s a co-author.

What do you hope UK audiences will take away with them after experiencing Melodies in Slow Motion?

Between the four of us, we wanted to explore our roots in Indian classical music – the tradition that grounds all our training – but through the lens of the living world. We looked at rhythms in nature: fireflies synchronising their flashing, the ebb and flow of intertidal mangroves, the internal clocks that govern circadian rhythm. And this connects back to something the ancient Indian classical musicians already understood: that our mood and psychological states shift with the changing light of the day. By mapping frequencies and ragas to those changes, they weren’t just creating music – they were creating a sonic mirror for the human mind.

We’re returning to those roots. To a tradition where mind, body and environment are connected – to the natural world, and to the tiny creatures living all around us. I want people to feel that interconnection. I want them to feel the joy of standing inside a beehive, or in a field lit up with fireflies. Ultimately, I want them to feel less alone – to feel that we belong to a shared world, one that still needs looking after.

Don’t miss Soumik Datta | Melodies in Slow Motion at Turner Sims on Tuesday 3 November, 7.30pm

Book here