John Stevens has been working as a journalist, publicist, promoter and creative producer of live music for many years. Based in Bristol he has been a volunteer and event manager at the Cube, a cinema space in the city, which has been formative in developing his approach to his projects, proving that grass-roots participatory strategies and small capacity spaces can be the best way to engage an audience with an artist’s work.
He is currently New Music Producer at New Music Plus, a creative and professional development and bursary programme created by PRS for Music Foundation and run in partnership with Bristol Plays Music hub. He recently co-worked on a project The Peace Garden, a tour of yoga and deep listening performance workshops conducted by American ambient music pioneer Laraaji. In contrast to this he had previously co-produced Shangaan Electro Dance Workshops (2013) based on contemporary South African music accompanied by a hype-energetic dance style. His interest in other artforms has led to further projects such as Off The Page (2014), a literary festival dedicated to contemporary sound and music in conjunction with the Wire.