Registered Charity
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About us
Who we are
The Abram Wilson Foundation’s story so far:
Abram Wilson was an acclaimed jazz trumpeter, vocalist, composer and educator from New Orleans who made London his home. During his life, he inspired audiences, collaborators and students with his music and his radiant positivity achieving an award-winning career as a performer and educator.
In June 2012 Abram passed away after a short illness. His manager, Jennie Cashman Wilson believed it was important to continue the work they had been doing together and the impact Abram had during his relatively short life, particularly through his educational work, reaching thousands of young people both in the UK and internationally.
Founded in 2012, the Abram Wilson Foundation (AWF) is inspired by something Abram said, “Though life is hard I come from a history of greatness, so I will be great”.
Our aim is to help disadvantaged young people and talented artists by providing a platform for them to discover, express and live out their greatness through multi-disciplinary performing arts projects.
Achieve Your Greatness (disadvantaged 11-16 years) – A multi-arts education programme for 11-16 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds involving music, theatre, dance and spoken word. Through our inclusive projects participants access high quality professional artists, are exposed to a range of different artforms and develop skills such as confidence, communication and creative thinking.
Know Your Greatness (artist incubator) – Ongoing artist development programme consisting of performances, masterclasses and one to one mentoring for artists transitioning to the next stage of their careers. With a special but not exclusive focus on emerging jazz musicians and those with fewer opportunities than their peers due to barriers such as socio-economic factors.
Live Your Greatness (artist realisation) - Collaborations to develop new work with high quality, reputable artists which will feed back into our other programme strands and support our younger beneficiary groups through education, employment and mentoring opportunities.
About The Philippa Project:
1967. America is in conflict; segregation is pitted against a burgeoning civil rights movement, capitalist ideals square off to the communist threat, and a war in Vietnam continues. Amidst the turmoil of a nation, a young woman searches for answers about race, gender, politics and her own identity.
The Philippa Project is a jazz-theatrical collaboration inspired by the extraordinary life story of Philippa Duke Schuyler, a prodigal, mixed-race concert-pianist, composer, and journalist – born in 1931 as an experiment in miscengenation into a sizzling, jazz-age Harlem. The first mixed-race star to grace the cover of TIME magazine, Philippa performed for queens and presidents but with her sudden passing, her story was lost.
This extraordinary adventure unravels the truths about Philippa’s life. Fuelled by her own words and a sound track of hedonistic live jazz this compelling new production is written and directed by award-winning multidisciplinary director Pia Furtado with music by the late, great, Abram Wilson.
We make this in Abram’s memory.
