Johnny Clifford was around right at the beginning of the Samba explosion in Greater Manchester. He cofounded Bangdrum workshops, was an original member of Cabasa, and has a special place in his heart for our work at the Vale.
Working out of Oldham, he ran and curated the Oldham samba school along with being the Cultural and Arts officer for the borough. In this role he commissioned street theatre, a range of festivals including Picking up Sticks, as well as programming theatre, live music and community arts development. Johnny left Oldham in 2006 to work as creative assistant to Paul Abbott, working on and developing ideas across the slate both in the UK and LA.
More recently, along with partner Helen Plaumer, Johnny owned and ran a successful holiday and wedding venue in North Wales.
There he programmed three festivals, plus a selection of curated live music.
Johnny joins us out of semi retirement to develop our own diverse live music and events programme.