Bringing together four boundary-pushing artists - each from England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland - Poesis is a new commission born from the acclaimed talent development programme Take Five led by Serious.

In this one-of-a-kind collaboration, the artists weave together themes of interconnection , borders, and language as thresholds. Featuring live soundscapes, re-imaginings of traditional folk songs, improvised melodies, and manipulated voices, the performance blurs the lines between past and present, place and perception.

Lineup:

Lulu Manning - Lulu Manning is an artist and composer born in Glasgow, now based in London. She often writes slow music that offers the listener a space to locate themselves in the work. Music that changes in subtle ways over time and that invites introspection. Lulu enjoys exploring different textures of sound ; often foregrounding processes of disintegration and modulation as key features of her work.

Lulu’s formative years were shaped by growing up in Glasgow amongst the city’s fervent creativity and DIY ethos. She relocated to London to study jazz & improvised music, this background experience informing her more recent work in experimental composition and ambient sound. Last year, her composition work was performed at London’s V&A Museum in the multidisciplinary work 'Queering The Mind ; Releasing The Body'. She composed the score for Loverboy’s S/S ’25 Fashion show at London’s Somerset House and was shortlisted by the Arts Foundation for the Jazz Composition award in 2024

Xhosa Cole - Xhosa Cole is one of the new rising stars of British Jazz. BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year 2018, Xhosa went on to win numerous awards and to appear onstage alongside jazz legends. Xhosa's exposure to players from a range of different traditions, combined with his strong connection to his inner-city community in Birmingham (UK), has helped to develop a fiercely unique and independent voice.

Claire Victoria Roberts - Claire Victoria Roberts is a composer, vocalist and violinist, blurring the boundaries of jazz, classical and folk genres. The Welsh-born artist draws upon her diverse influences through improvised vocals, Celtic fiddle music, and lyrical jazz and classical styles.

Conor McCauley - Belfast based drummer and improviser Conor McCauley is one third of Córas Trio - who are part of a new creative wave of musicians based in Belfast exploring how traditional music relates to the experience of the 21st century. Challenging ideas of cultural purism, they sweep the lines of contemporary musical practice, unafraid and unapologetic in their exploration of new ideas.

In 2025, Serious' talent development programme Take Five will celebrate its twentieth edition, marked by a project bringing together four Take Five alumni to re-imagine the piece of music they wrote for Take Five and tour the work in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Serious Trust is supported by PRS Foundation's Beyond Borders