DU Podcast: Sound in Motion Amy May, Michael 'Mikey J' Asante MBE, Vincenzo Lamagna

Photo Phil King

Amy is a composer, arranger and multi instrumentalist, specialising in the viola and violin.

Her music has been described as being “like Arcade Fire playing in an English country garden.” (NME). She writes commercial music for TV, films and adverts, and collaborates with contemporary artists, performers and film makers. She orchestrates and arranges for bands from Muse to SBTRKT and helps create and realise live performances of music by electronic and non-classical artists.

Amy currently plays viola and violin for the multiple Grammy award winning Hamilton, is the Principal Viola of the Heritage Orchestra and works as a live and session musician for a wide range of bands and artists, from Snow Patrol to Emeli Sandé.

Photo Benji Reid

Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante MBE is a renowned producer, composer and DJ, whose 20-year career history is firmly etched in the UK black music industry.

As co-artistic director of hip hop dance theatre company Boy Blue, founded in 2001 with Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy, Asante is credited with the direction and composition of REDD (2019), the film R.E.B.E.L (2018), Outliers (2018), Blak Whyte Gray (2017), The Five & the Prophecy of Prana (2013), Touch (2011), Legacy (2011) and Pied Piper (2007).

As a producer, Asante has worked with major label artists including Delilah, Raleigh Ritchie, Estelle and George The Poet. Notably Asante has worked extensively with Kano including engineering and production on the critically acclaimed album Made In The Manor and the albums Home Sweet Home, London Town and 140 Grime Street. Recent television and theatre work includes composition for Tree, a Kwame Kwei-Armah and Idris Elba creation for Manchester International Festival, composition for Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship a National Geographic documentary special, the BBC documentary The Three Lives of Michael X, and a collaboration with Brian Eno over two series of Netflix’s Top Boy.

Outside of the studio, Asante mentors and delivers master classes in directing, choreography and music and is also found residing in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s faculty as a Professor of electronic music, from where, in 2018, Asante was awarded an Honorary Fellowship (HonFGS). Asante received an MBE to Hip Hop Dance and Music in the 2022 New Year’s Honours.

Vincenzo Lamagna is a musician, composer and producer. His music is known for its visceral, emotive and edgy language that utilises a mercurial combination of acoustic and electronic sounds, recognised for their ferocious industrial undertones, haunted melodies and cinematic soundscapes.

Alongside his work as a solo artist, Lamagna has established himself as a successful composer in the Contemporary Dance and Ballet world. In 2015 he began a long standing collaboration with Akram Khan that brought to life a string of successful works including the 21st Century adaptation of Giselle for English National Ballet. Lamagna’s “magnificently cinematic score” has been unanimously praised by both press and audiences and led him to be the first composer to be nominated by the Critics’ Circle for a National Dance Award in 2017.

At present Vincenzo is working with state of the art spatial audio technology “L-ISA” to create a unique immersive experience, expanding the dimensions of his compositional work and live performance.