PRS Foundation Talent Development Network funding makes new Fuel music productions possible

Last year, Fuel joined the PRS Talent Development Network, supported by PPL. This has meant Fuel has been able to step up our composed music for stage work.  

Last week we announced a reimagining of Inua Ellams’ An Evening with an Immigrant, with Laura Mvula composing for a 20-piece chamber orchestra, the renowned Chineke! With a grant from the Talent Development Network. Laura says; “ 

“It’s been really exciting for me to approach An Evening with an Immigrant as a composer responding to Inua’s beautiful poetry, it’s a collaboration and process that really resonates with me. In An Evening with an Immigrant, Inua has managed to voice so many stories in his unique, poignant and critically important style. 

It’s a pleasure to create music that both deepens and highlights the show’s incisive, urgent and bold words.” 

In addition, work is underway on an exciting new opera – still to be announced – by Michael Henry and Inua Ellams, with Francesca Amewudah-Rivers as Associate Music Director. The Associate Music Director role was made possible by the PRS Talent Development Network.  

Michael says; “At this stage I have added material in a variety of languages that are unfamiliar to me, using translations of English text from our librettist and being influenced by the spoken speech patterns of these words provided by consultants through Fuel. Without PRS Foundation support I would not have had this opportunity to develop as a composer, both in general and through the specific challenges inherent in this particular commission. These challenges are ongoing, and it is through PRSF support that I feel able to contribute as a creative towards a production strategy going forward.” 

Francesca says; “I’m honoured be a small part of the incredible team developing this story. I started out as Music Intern on Inua’s Three Sisters at the National Theatre, so I’m excited to be working with Inua and Michael Henry, with huge thanks to Fuel and PRS Foundation for making it possible.” 

Picture credit (Kody Mortimer Photography) 

Francesca Amewudah-Rivers is a British Ghanaian-Nigerian artist working across sound and performance. She was awarded the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund for Audio Design (2021), was a finalist for Best Score at the British Short Film Awards for MINUTES (2022) and won Best Original Score at the BAFTA qualifying Focus Wales Film Festival for GRIEF (2024). Her theatre credits as Composer/Sound Designer include One Way Out (Brixton House), Family Tree (ATC UK Tour), Babel (CPT), and as Musician/Performer Anansi & Other Such Stories (Soho Theatre) and The Kola Nut Does Not Speak English (Bush Theatre).