This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Te Arts, Fashion & Design


Shirley Tompson Composer/lecturer


A cutting-edge composer, Dr Shirley Thompson’s music is performed, screened and broadcast worldwide. Thompson is the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. New Nation Rising, A 21st Century Symphony’ performed and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is an epic musical story celebrating London’s thousand-year history, and one in which the RPO are accompanied by two choirs, solo singers, a rapper and dhol drummers. In August 2011 New Nation Rising was performed once again by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor John Rigby as part of the Under the Stars East End Prom. In 2012 Southbank Centre premiered her latest work, Mandela Tales, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, to a sell-out audience at the Imagine Children’s Festival. With a rich portfolio of innovative works of art, Thompson’s music for the theatrical stage includes her score for the play, The Lodger (Theatre Royal, Stratford East) and A Child of the Jago, an opera in two acts presented by London’s Royal Festival Hall. Jago earned her a nomination for the Woman of the Year award.


Roy Williams Playwright


Roy is now one of Britain’s finest and most prolific dramatists, producing a play a year. In 2011, he won the Writers Guild Award for Best Play for Sucker Punch. IT was also nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. He has written for London’s Royal Court (Fallout, 2003); the National Theatre (Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads, 2004) and the RSC (Days of Significance, 2007). Fallout was his response to the murders of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence and he rewrote it as a successful film for Channel 4. In 2004 Roy won the first Arts Council Decibel Award for black and Asian artists. In 2001, he won the Evening Standard’s most promising playwright award for his Royal Court play Clubland. He left school at 16 with one CSE grade 1 (equivalent to a C at GCSE) in English. His first full-length play, The No Boys Cricket Club, premiered in 1996 at Theatre Royal Stratford East. The youngest of four siblings in a single parent home, Williams grew up in west London. He credits the writer Don Kinch as a mentor who helped him when he was failing at school. The writer introduced him to the arts after Roy attended rehearsals at a black theatrical company Kinch ran.


Alek Wek Model/charity worker


A South Sudanese British supermodel who first appeared on the catwalks at the age of 18 in 1995, Alek Wek has done much to promote the concept black beauty in fashion. In 1991 she and some family members fled to Britain to escape the civil war in Sudan. Wek was discovered at an outdoor market in London in 1995 by a Models 1 scout. She first received attention when she appeared in the music video for GoldenEye by Tina Turner, in 1995 and from there entered the world of fashion as one of its top models. She was signed to Ford Models in 1996 and was named Model of the Year in 1997 by MTV. She was the first African model to appear on the cover of Elle, also in 1997. Among other things she has done advertisements for Issey Miyake, Moschino, Victoria’s Secret and make-up company Clinique as well as walked the runway for high-profile fashion designers Shiatzy Chen, John Galliano, Chanel, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Jasper Conran. As a former refugee she is a strong supporter of the UN refugee agency UNHCR and has been involved with much charity work connected with Africa. Alek returned home to South Sudan in July 2012 to mark the country’s first anniversary of independence and to visit UNHCR projects there.


Stephen Wiltshire MBE Architectural Illustrator


Extraordinarily giſted, Stephen was awarded an Honorary Life Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Illustrators. He was made the ‘New face of Pen and Ink’ by Staedler, the largest pen maker, whose pens Stephen has been using for years. Additionally, the 2011 advertising campaign of Swiss bank UBS, entitled ‘We will not rest’, is based on Stephen and his works (a giant 250ſt panorama of New York – drawn by Stephen – was placed on a billboard at JFK International airport in June 2011 to kick off the campaign). In 2012, his first world wide television advertising campaign for UBS launched in Asia and is due to be shown in Europe and America. Te ad has already won numerous awards. A stalwart of the Powerlist, Stephen has arguably done more to change the perception of autistic people than anyone. He has been hailed as the leading architectural artist in the world because of his astounding ability to draw stunningly detailed buildings completely from memory. He has created cityscapes from taking half- hour helicopter rides over the world’s major capital cities. Stephen, 37, is the only autistic savant in the world whose work has been recorded and published since his childhood. His latest masterpiece captures an aerial view of the London 2012 Olympics site. Stephen has his own gallery in Pall Mall, London, which has recently doubled in size.


WWW.POWERFUL-MEDIA.COM | POWERLIST 2013 21


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120