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LIVE AT THE BEDFORD PRESENTS: ROMA ROSE & FRIENDS, MAMAS IN MUSIC
Come and join us for a Nashville-inspired sharing of songs, to celebrate the release of Roma Rose’s debut EP.
Tonight’s show is £11.37, there is a ticket link below.
Doors open at 7:00 pm, Full Bar & Menu available
This evening we have live music from:
ROMA ROSE
2022 sees Scotland’s Roma Rose teaming up with top songwriters and producers across London and Nashville to release her debut EP Ghost. This is a project championed by Arts Council England, with the aim of championing women and mothers in music. Each song on the five-track EP has been produced by a different female producer, experimenting with new sounds, whilst maintaining Roma’s delicate pop folk core.
Her work has won support from BBC Introducing, BBC Radio Scotland, Amazing Radio, and publishing house Palm Bay Music who have signed her catalogue so far. 2021 also brought an artist of the week main press feature with The Scotsman newspaper, a Song of the Year shortlist for ‘Earned Me’ with The Weekender Awards; and a live performance on the broadcast stage for BBC Upload Edinburgh 2021, where 6 acts were chosen from thousands to perform.
On 3rd November 2022, Roma will be joined by some incredible guests for a special performance at The Bedford in Balham. Hosted by Mamas in Music, this will be an evening to get together – sharing songs, stories, and the highs and lows of navigating the music industry as a working mother.
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ME FOR QUEEN
With a voice often likened to Carole King and Regina Spektor, a classical piano training, and influences ranging from Björk to Chopin, Me for Queen – the creative alias of Mary Erskine – is rapidly winning acclaim for her beguiling ‘soul-folk’ songcraft, blending traditional folk story-telling with a contemporary edge.
Her much-anticipated debut solo album, “Loose End” was released via Seahorse Music in September 2018, followed by an EP “Perfect Stranger” exploring motherhood, a collaboration with the Nashville singer, Alva Leigh. Mary has enjoyed support from BBC6 Music and BBC Radio Wales and BBC Scotland; the album was Record of Note on Roddy Hart’s show and the single, Loose End, was Single of the Week on the Janice Forsyth show.
Teaming up for a 2nd time with Jim Wallis at Bella Union Studios, her new album, Microclimate, is set for release in February 2023 with her next single ‘Inside’ landing in October 2022, a song, which Erskine explains, she wrote shortly after a miscarriage at 19 weeks. The song is to be released to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness week. We feel so privileged to have Me For Queen joining us and to share her songs centred around the themes and truths of motherhood.
In her words, “I am excited to join Mamas in Music at the Bedford – adding to the voices of mothers in the music industry (which for so long has felt like a system built by and for men) and trying to move things forward to make this industry a more open and inclusive space.”
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MARY LEAY
Mamas In Music co-founder Mary Leay is a UK based songwriter and top liner, writing across pop, dance and country. With platinum cuts for Becky Hill & MK, and penning hits for global superstar Cher, and X factors Union J, along with breaking artists Adam Rom, Kelli-Leigh, Cattle and Cane and Nashville writers Scott Mulvahill, Roger Cooke and Georgia Thomas.
With a distinctive haunting vocal she occasionally features for some widely loved producers including Paul Harris, Eden Prince, Carl Ryden, and Neptunica, as well as up-and-coming producers, Tobias Bergson, Lipless, Boilers & Sugar Jesus, which recently led to featuring on Spotify’s ‘Songwriters’ Hub’ celebrating “new songwriters to watch.”
Mary will be hosting the event, opening up conversations about being a mother in this industry and reclaiming your identity after becoming a parent. She will also be sharing a few songs of her own.
Mary says, “I grew up learning that the music industry didn’t allow for anything other than being available 100% of the time, and if you didn’t bust your gut to get success, then someone else would be doing it instead. The thing is, it’s such a strange world, because ultimately we’re just doing the most normal thing, raising the next generation of humans and yet, still in this day and age we are penalised for doing something so natural because it doesn’t quite fit the schedule, or the sales pitch, both, created by men.”
“But mothers are grafters, and we get up early, we get shit done and once you have a child it puts an awful lot into perspective. I think it connects you in a creative way, that I perhaps never fully felt before, it makes me work smarter and harder. This community is to help all women in music that identify with being in a mother role, to show them and everyone you can do both. You will do both!”
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YVA
Amy Holford, the person behind the moniker YVA, is an independent artist, writer and producer from Newcastle, UK. She released her debut chamber pop EP, HYPE MACHINE, in 2021, after recording and mixing it from her home studio. She has amassed millions of streams online, BBC6 and BBC Introducing radio plays and a loyal fanbase over her decade in the industry.
Relentless in her approach to truth and drawing on a love of high drama and soundtracks, YVA’s music is raw and poetic in its approach to difficult subjects after a long sabbatical away from music due to mental health in 2016. Inspired by artists like Radiohead, Massive Attack, Anna Calvi and Bon Iver, YVA is also a long-term fixture in Ivor Novello award winner Nitin Sawhney’s band, having recorded and featured on his albums and toured with him for over half a decade.
Her next EP, Delusions of Grandeur, tries to make sense of her own identity as she wrote and assembled it largely when she was still pregnant with her daughter Juno. She’s excited to be a part of Mama’s in Music as this will be her first solo gig in about four years, and being a new mum has made the prospect of returning to live music a daunting one.
YVA says “I’m really looking forward to performing some of my songs, old and newly written, in a safe space with like minds. People underestimate how intimidating it can be to get to your thirties as a woman in this industry.”
Find out more here!
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