Our Trustees
Chair - Aaron Casserly Stewart
Aaron is a jazz vocalist, manager, producer, educator, activist and former singer with the three time Grammy Award winning group The Sounds Of Blackness. He is the founder of Paradise Hill Productions; an artist development business that works with emerging and established artists and the former personal assistant to Morris Hayes (Prince's keyboardist & band leader of the New Power Generation). Winner of a 2012 NAACP Image Award, Aaron is the Chair of Black Lives Matter Leeds; Vice Chair of the Leeds Conservatoire and serves on the boards of the Manchester Jazz Festival, Come Play With Me, Showroom Cinema and the Gilbert Baker Foundation. In addition, he is an advisor for PRS Foundation, Music: Leeds, Launchpad and the former City Commissioner/Mayor of Parsons, Kansas. In his spare time, he enjoys travelling, gardening and spending time with his husband Peter.
Roger Wilson
Roger Wilson is co-founder of Black Lives in Music, an initiative dedicated to addressing better representation throughout the music industry. His experience is on both sides of the stage as musician, educator, tour manager and administrator. Conservatoire trained, he has worked extensively in the commercial, jazz and classical sector with a wide range of artists including James Brown and Quincy Jones. As an instrumental teacher and lecturer, Roger has worked throughout the UK music education sector at all levels. In recent years his work has focused on the professional development of aspiring young musicians. He is and continues to be a champion of social justice.
Sally Currie
Sally is a qualified accountant who has worked in finance for over 20 years and is based in Hull. She is also partially deaf. She joined Drake Music in January 2024. Prior to this she worked for Jazz North, The Old Market and supported Hulls arts sector post City of Culture 2017 including 4 years at Freedom Festival Arts Trust. She was a founding director of The New Adelphi Club CIC, one of the longest running independent music venues in the UK. She is also a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer and arranger. She is currently the leader of The Dyr Sister, a contemporary folk trio and was awarded commissions in recent years from various organisations that explored presenting her music in multidisciplinary formats.
Perri Alleyne-Hughes
Perri Alleyne-Hughes is a singer-songwriter, choral arranger and composer, writer and actor. Perri was the Musical Director for Sense of Sound Singers (Liverpool), for 10 years, leading the choir in collaborations with artists as diverse as Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paco Peña, and Neil Campbell, and through major competitions on BBC TV and radio. She is a retired secondary school teacher of Maths, Biology and Performing Arts, and was the only black role model available to her students for the majority of her teaching career. She was keen to give her students lots of extra-curricular opportunities to indulge in drama and a cappella singing. She currently leads an eponymously named jazz ensemble and performs to a wide range of audiences, from small community ventures to those in much larger arenas.
Sonia Mellor
Sonia Mellor is a freelance music education consultant with over 30 years experience working with Music Education hubs, latterly as Head of Rotherham Music in South Yorkshire.
Born in North Wales, her introduction to jazz came playing with Bill Basey’s Big Band before studying Trumpet at Leeds College of Music with jazz legend Dickie Hawdon.
She is passionate about introducing young musicians to jazz from the beginning and encouraging pathways to a life enriched with creative music making. She has worked with The National Youth Jazz Collective and Jazz North’s award winning, Jazz Camp for Girls.