Summit: ldn25
Length: 14:06
Grassroots scenes are the unsung powerhouse of culture across the UK. New music scenes often come about through the work of a handful of individuals or collectives of individuals, investing time and their own money into building like-minded communities. In an increasingly fragile ecosystem, this session explores the vital role of the DIY ecology, including the techniques and strategies deployed by these scene makers and creative entrepreneurs, often against all the odds.
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Will Dutta is a passionate and entrepreneurial artist and composer with a restless inventiveness for the how and why we make sound. His breadth of work has reached all corners of the music industry: from performances, such as Ether Festival at Southbank Centre, to stage managing Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra, to publishing original research, and producing two studio albums, Parergon (Just Music, 2012) and bloom (SWD, 2017), that feature collaborations with Plaid and Friendly Fires’ front-man Ed Macfarlane. Over a 15-year career he has supported the creation of radical new work with far-reaching impact, including Gabriel Prokofiev’s now iconic Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra. He was creative director of the concert production of The Little Prince, composed by the late-Nicholas Lloyd Webber and James D Reid, and his studio’s most recent production, Roshanarar bagan, an immersive exhibition that explores decadence in the context of the attention industry, recently ended a five week-run at the Austrian Cultural Forum London.
Will, who is of British-Bengali background, is a Fellow of the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Kent where he is exploring human and machine creativity, and he recently held teaching positions at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and The King’s School in Canterbury. He has a PhD in Creative Practice (Music) from City, University of London.
Provhat Rahman is a Bangladeshi producer, DJ and curator. As one of the co-founders behind South Asian arts platforms Daytimers and Dialled In – he has spent the past four years platforming the breadth of contemporary artistry from the sub-continent and its diaspora.
British-Irish dual national Emma Warren is the author of Dance Your Way Home (Faber, 2023). Make Some Space (Sweet Machine, 2019) and Steam Down: Or How Things Begin (Rough Trade Books, 2019). Her pamphlet Document Your Culture is a cult read for renegade archivists across the globe. Hosting a radio show on WWFM for six years, she also has a background in youth work. In 2024 she was awarded International Music Journalist of the Year at the Reeperbahn Festival in Germany and was shortlisted for the 2025 Eccles Institute and Hay Festival Global Writer’s Award.
