Thursday 21st September 2023
Doors: 2:30pm
Free Entry
To book a table, call:
- 0161 273 5495, 10am-5pm Monday-Friday
- 0161 831 7002, after 5pm Monday-Saturday
- Or leave a message outside of these times and we’ll get back to you.
The Armed Forces get creative in Manchester.
The winners of The STARTS Award, a new initiative promoting creative talent from within the Armed Forces Community, are coming to Manchester on September 21st to showcase their work.
The 5 winners of The STARTS Award Spoken Word category will perform live at Matt and Phred’s Jazz Club in central Manchester, and the 5 winners of the Visual Art category will be exhibiting their artwork at the Comme Ca Art gallery in The Lowry Hotel. The events provide a professional platform for the winners to share their work with wider audiences, and to gain valuable experience for developing their creative practice.
The STARTS Award live show at Matt and Phred’s on 21st September will celebrate the diversity of talent within the military community, including comedy, storytelling, and poetry. The award winners, Kenny MacLean, Tip Cullen, Emma Bate, Gill Charlton and Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, will be joined by singer/songwriter Charlie Cooper, a hugely talented professional musician and a regular performer at Matt and Phred’s.
The STARTS Award exhibition at The Lowry Hotel will launch on 21st September and run until 7th November. The award winners, Richie Cave, Nicki Young, Mike Flynn, Clement Boland and Dougie Adams, embrace a wide range of media, materials and techniques to create powerful, revealing and personal pieces. The winners’ artwork will be exhibited alongside the work of professional visual artists, Sian Absalom, Stefanie Trow, Alan Yaffe, Rebecca Davy, Rachael Addis and Susan Aggarwal. Sara Howarth, Veteran Support Liaison for The STARTS Award, will also be exhibiting her latest piece of artwork.
Since the announcement of the winners in July, the group has spent the last few weeks creating new pieces for the showcase events on 21st September. They were guided and encouraged by their professional creative coaches, who led both individual and group sessions, including a workshop on professional practice and a ‘sharing’, enabling all 10 winners to come together to celebrate each other's work.