Page 36 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

Arts, Fashion & Design Dr Shirley J Thompson

Composer, Conductor & Reader in Music,
University of Westminster

Shirley is one of Britain’s most innovative composers and
has created music extensively for TV, film, theatre, dance
and opera production.
She made history when she became the first woman in
Europe in 40 years to compose and conduct a symphony.
New Nation Rising: A 21st Century Symphony, performed
and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is an
epic musical story celebrating London’s thousand-year
history, and one in which the RPO is accompanied by two
choirs, solo singers, a rapper and dhol drummers – a total
of nearly 200 performers.
In 2018, Shirley was commissioned to compose a major
piece of work to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the
arrival of the Windrush. She also featured in the launch of
the Black Sound Exhibition at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre.
Her work has been commissioned for an installation
at the Venice Biennale and she is currently making a
programme for the BBC about Florence B Price, the first
African-American woman to compose a symphony and
have it performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
Lemn Sissay in 1932.
Poet, author, broadcaster Shirley recently won a University of West Indies
Luminary Award for outstanding contribution to
culture globally, as well as a University of Westminster
Poet, playwright and occasional broadcaster, Lemn is Chancellor’s Award for outstanding contribution to
one of Britain’s most prolific writers. He has read poetry Research, Academic Enterprise and Teaching – she is a
everywhere from the Library of Congress in The United Reader in Composition and Performance at the institution.
States to the University of Addis Ababa, from the Botanic This year she was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Gardens of Singapore to the shores of Sri Lanka, from the University of West Indies for global impact on arts and
Wembley football stadium to Maryland football stadium, culture, Doctor of Letters.
from the theatres of Bangalore to the theatres of Dubai, from She also signed a publishing deal with major European
a literature festival in Bali to a bar stage in Greenland... and publisher Deuss Music, The Hague, making her the first
Wigan library! British composer on their roster.
This year he was named poet laureate of Canterbury and
he was honoured with a Doctor of Letters from the University
of Kent.
Lemn was awarded an MBE for services to literature in
2010. He is Chancellor of the University of Manchester and
an honorary Doctor from the universities of Huddersfield
and Manchester. The Sissay PhD Scholarship for Care
Leavers, the first of its kind, has been running for seven
years through the University of Huddersfield.
Lemn started The Christmas Dinners for care leavers
in Manchester in 2012. Now they take place throughout
England.
His Landmark poems can be found on walls in public
spaces around the world from the Royal Festival Hall in
London to the British Council Offices in Addis Ababa.
His poem Gilt of Cain was unveiled by Bishop Desmond
Tutu in The City of London where it stands to this day.
His installation poem What if? was exhibited at the Royal
Academy and toured the world from Tokyo to New York.
He has written various plays for the stage. Something
Dark is on the National Curriculum as a choice text, and
he adapted Benjamin Zephaniah’s hit novel, Refugee Boy
which toured to rave reviews. In 2017, he acted for the first
time, playing Scully in Jim Cartwright’s ROAD at Royal
Court Theatre. In the same year, his radio two-parter Lemn
Sissay’s Homecoming was nominated for a Palme D’Or.

32 Powerlist 2019