Lucca Mae & her band – with support from Michael & Sadie Roach – 4th Emsworth ‘January Blues’ Festival – in association with Harbour Records

Lucca Mae is a rising star on the burgeoning London Soul / Rock‘n’Roll scene. Taking cues from the likes of Sam Cooke, Amy Winehouse & Paolo Nutini, her singing, songwriting, and performance is second to none.

With sold out gigs under her belt in the UK, Australia & Canada, alongside her solo weekly residency at the legendary Marquis Covent Garden, Lucca Mae is well underway and is taking over the UK, one gig at a time.

We are delighted to have her opening up our 4th Emsworth ‘January Blues’ Festival!  Presented in association with Harbour Records, this weekend festival will feature two nights of ticketed shows at St James Church Parish Hall on Friday and Saturday night, and a Saturday afternoon of FREE performances at various pubs in Emsworth.

“As far as I’m concerned The London scene is Lucca Mae, Laurie Wright & The Molotovs” ~ Steve White (Paul Weller/Style Council drummer)

“Outstanding, I want to play drums on her album.” ~ (Alan White – Oasis drummer)

“She’s got a beautiful voice… tell her to holler when she comes out to LA” ~ Tom Brenneck, Dunham Records

Lucca Mae – with support from Michael & Sadie Roach – will play St James Church Parish Hall (20A Church Path, Emsworth, Hampshire, PO10 7DP) on Friday 16th January

Doors open 7.30pm for an 8pm show
Unreserved seating

As always, we’ll have our licensed bar serving delicious beers from Langham Brewery 🍻 as well as wines, local cider, nonalcoholic beers, and soft drinks

🎫 Tickets on sale now at Bookends and Harbour Records in Emsworth village, at The Westbourne Cafe in Westbourne Village, and online at www.WeGotTickets.com/WemsFest

This year our charity bucket on the bar is fundraising for ❤️ Cardiac Risk in the Young ❤️, and all profits from bar and ticket sales are reinvested into our local community

If you require special assistance or have mobility difficulties, please contact us in advance at adwemsfest@gmail.com or 07802 500 050 and we will do our very best to accommodate you so that you are comfortable.

Surtierra Touring Project – Quimantu with the WemsFest Community Choir – London performance

We are delighted to announce a new project, the Surtierra Touring Project, which WemsFest will be delivering locally in collaboration with London-based Anglo-Chilean band Quimantu in the first half of 2025!

The Surtierra Touring Project is a large-scale project, run by Quimantu and Musiko Musika (an artist-led music education and cultural organisation). The project will work with five community choirs to tour performances of Mauricio Venegas-Astorga‘s Misa de los Mineros (Miners’ Mass), in Hampshire, West Sussex, and Dorset, culminating with two large-scale performances in London as part of Refugee Week in June 2025, in which all singers/choirs that have been involved in the project will be invited to perform together.

Locally for WemsFest, this project will involve the creation of a collaborative community choir, bringing together locals from all walks of life, as well as deliberately involving refugees who live locally. We have two brilliant choir leaders, Emily Barden and Laura Blake, who will lead our choir. The WemsFest Choir will form to learn, rehearse, and perform the Misa de los Mineros, as well as other pieces chosen by the choir. The choir will perform three local performances of the Misa de los Mineros in Spring 2025, and will then travel to London for a special performance at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, in a grand finale for the project in June 2025.  For some performances, the WemsFest choir will be joined by similar collaborative community choirs from Andover, Southampton, and Dorset.

Details of the finale performance on World Refugee Day, as part of our celebrations of Refugee Week 2025, are below:

The WemsFest Choir performing alongside Quimantu and the Alkyona Quartet, and the Andover Museum Loft Singers and Southampton & Winchester Visitors’ Group Choir

St Paul’s Church, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9ED
Fri 20th June, 7.30pm (doors open 7pm)
Tickets (£15 general admission; £10 concessions) on sale here: https://actorschurch.org/whatson/surtierra-tour/ 

Licensed bar at all performances

Finally, this project is being supported by a generous grant from Arts Council England, but we need to support the project with local fundraising – we have a target of raising £15,000 locally.  This money will be used to deliver our arm of the project – paying for the hire of rehearsal spaces and performance venues, paying for the choir leaders who will teach the piece to the choir, paying for the choir’s transportation to and from London for the Finale Performance, etc.  If you are interested to donate or to help us raise funds to deliver the Surtierra Touring Project, we’d be absolutely chuffed!  You can click on the JustGiving logo below to make a donation to help us deliver this project.  Alternatively, if you have fundraising ideas, please get in touch with Mark Ringwood at adwemsfest@gmail.com