MARK GRIST
Mark Grist went from being an English teacher to defeating a grime artist in a ‘student vs teacher’ rap battle that has attracted over 5 million hits on YouTube. Since then he has been on two national tours, appeared on the telly and has won several awards for his online videos. He’s been hailed as all sorts – from a “Poetry standout”(Financial Times) to a “YouTube sensation” (The Sun) and even an “unlikely heart-throb” (Guardian). He’s currently producing a film based upon his experiences with Studio Canal and is working on a new comedy/spoken word show with Tim Clare called ‘Only you Can Save Poetry.’
TOM BLAND
Tom Bland is a poet and (kind of) performance artist who spent five years of his life studying psychoanalysis.
SOUL PATEL
Soul is a London-based poet who writes about anything and everything that might pop into his head and sound vaguely poetic. He reads regularly at the Troubadour and is a member of Malika’s Kitchen, a poetry collective. Soul recently won third prize in the Magma Poetry Competition.
KOSTAS CHONDROS
Kostas Chondros is a poet, translator and filmmaker from Athens, Greece. He has studied social and visual anthropology and has lived and worked in London since 2004. He is the resident filmmaker for Mopomoso, a free improvised music series held at the Vortex Jazz Club and occasionally teaches filmmaking skills to Cambridge University students. He also co-runs the experimental film screening collective Amakino.
CLARA GREEN
Swedish singer Clara Green is a Jazz voice graduate of Middlesex University, where she studied with many notable musicians; including spectacular pianist Nikki Iles. Clara was a member of well renowned jazz vocal ensemble The London Vocal Project between 2009 and 2014, and also has her own song writing project in which she crosses boundaries between Jazz, Folk and RnB. Her recent collaboration with pianist Bruno Heinen and bassist Andrea Di Biase started as a tribute to Swedish jazz singer Monica Zetterlund and her 60’s project with the Bill Evans Trio, but has since grown into a wider exploration of Swedish folk music and jazz, and fresh and creative interpretations of jazz standards.
