AudioActive x London Philharmonic Orchestra

AudioActive x London Philharmonic Orchestra Bring Bold New Sounds to Brighton’s Spring Festival

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This May, Brighton’s much-loved Spring Festival returns for one of the city’s most cherished green spaces – St Ann’s Well Gardens. This year’s line-up features an exciting collaboration between music-fuelled social change catalysers AudioActive and the renowned London Philharmonic Orchestra. They’ll be joining forces on the festival’s Emerge Stage, highlighting emerging local talent alongside some of the UK’s finest classical musicians in a unique programme of live performances.

Now in its 16th year, the Spring Festival has long been a highlight in Brighton and Hove’s cultural calendar. After a short break, it’s back in 2025 with a day packed with live music, workshops, art, and community activities. The event takes place on Saturday 3rd May 2025, running from 12pm to 7:30pm in St Ann’s Well Gardens. It’s free to attend and open to all, making it a celebration of the city’s creative spirit. For the full line-up and event details, head here. AudioActive’s ‘Emerge’ stage, which is at the heart of the collaboration, features a line-up bustling with local talent – enriching the Spring Festival with a insight into the thriving young musicianship taking place on the doorstep.

Emerge, AudioActive’s artist development programme, is designed to support young musicians as they navigate an industry that can often feel difficult to access. Through a mix of mentoring, funding, and hands-on workshops, Emerge offers up-and-coming artists the space to refine their skills, experiment, and develop their sound. For this year’s cohort, that has included a series of sessions with musicians from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, exploring what happens when very different musical traditions meet.

The result is a series of original, genre-defying performances, all of which will be showcased live on the Emerge Stage at this year’s festival.

The Emerge Stage will feature a strong line-up of AudioActive artists including Amy Walker, REA, Snow, JJM, Lisa Lo, Amy Palmer, 224 (LD), Asiedu, and Lilly Wolfe. They’ll be joined by legendary DJ and producer Mak 10, the Spring into Soul Choir, New Budd Beginnings, and acclaimed vocalist Kele Le Roc, fresh from recent collaborations with both the Drum and Bass Orchestra and Basement Jaxx’s Romeo.

One artist we’ve been keen to catch up with during the event is Amy Palmer, a Brighton-based singer-songwriter known for her thoughtful lyrics and soulful delivery. Amy is part of this year’s Emerge line-up and has been collaborating with the LPO musicians in the lead-up to the festival – check out our Q&A below!

Stay tuned for updates on Rankd.uk

Photo by @Kittwamley

A Q&A with AudioActive artist Amy Palmer

What support have you received from AudioActive, and how has it benefitted your musical journey so far?

AudioActive has given me support in lots of different ways. During the Emerge programme, we would meet as a group on a weekly basis and have masterclasses from industry professionals about how we can further our artist development. The weekly sessions provided lots of useful knowledge going forward and also a welcoming space for everyone on Emerge to collaborate. I was also given the opportunity to have a song writing session with Sophie Faith in the Worthing studios which was great! It helped inspire new musical ideas, and I got a really cool song out of it which I hope to release later this year.

Your January single ‘Messy’ explores R&B/ soul grooves and harmonies complimented by the silky tones of max adriaan. – what was the song writing process for the track?

I’ve been friends with Max for years now and we always creatively collaborate so it made the process of writing Messy really easy actually! I produce all of my songs with my boyfriend Frank, and after a gig one night we all went back to our home studio and decided to write a track. I wrote a chord progression on keys and ideas started flowing really quickly. Messy was ready to release a few days later, which is definitely the quickest I’ve ever finished off a song and shared it.

After a recent performance with Osk at Green Door Store – what is your favourite grassroots venue in Brighton and why?

I love Green Door Store as I’ve performed there so much over the years and it holds a lot of good memories for me, but I think my favourite grassroots venue in Brighton is the Folklore Rooms. It’s so beautifully presented and the sound is always incredible. I think the venue really compliments my style of music too, I especially enjoy the intimate seated shows with candlelight! I recently supported Kymara there for Basics Vol. 4, and it was an amazing night of soul music, poetry and comedy.

What are your plans and ambitions for ’25?

I plan to release my next single Sticky Situation on 9th May! I’m very excited to share this one as I’ve had it in the vault for a while. I’m aiming to release as much music as I can this year and perform my songs to as many people as possible. I’m also collaborating a lot more with local artists and musicians. There is just so much talent to be inspired by in the Brighton music scene at the moment.

What has your experience been like collaborating with LPO – and how has this inspired your music moving forwards?

Being able to collaborate with LPO has been an incredible opportunity and definitely not something I would have thought to be possible without AudioActive. We spent a day at the Worthing studio with some musicians from LPO and we were able to share our tracks with them. I was lucky enough to have them record on two of my songs. It was great to hear positive feedback on my music from such prestigious musicians, and the experience opened my eyes to how completely different genres and styles of music can work together harmoniously to create something really cool and exciting!