Fern

Regional Award for Doncaster Business…

	Arts & Business Awards held at the National Railway Museum, York Monday 9th October 2006 Doncaster’s Fern Creative Media won the 2006 Arts & Business Award for their collaboration with jazz trombonist Dennis Rollins on the HotHouse Festival’s ‘Rhythms of Fire’ project. As well as a magnificent trophy, which Fern get to keep, they also collected a cheque for £1,000 which they have donated to Doncaster’s HotHouse Festival.
Fern Creative MD Howard Johnson said… “Winning this award is great for Doncaster, great for Fern, for Dennis and for HotHouse, especially since we beat off competition from major players like Barclay’s Bank. Fern are proud of our partnership with the HotHouse Festival and Doncaster Council and we actively encourage our staff to use their talents and skills to ensure our company makes a significant contribution. HotHouse has given us the chance to play a creative role in the community; it’s showcased our talents and provided opportunities for us to work with some amazingly talented people ”.
		Howard Johnson(Fern), Jan Sissons(DMBC) & Dennis Rollins.
2006 is turning out to be an “ Awards year” for both Howard and Dennis , Howard was joint winner of the Doncaster Business Ambassador Award and the Arts & Business Award makes a hat-trick for Dennis, adding to the Martston’s Pedegree British Jazz Award with his band Bad Bone and the BBC Jazz Award for Best Band, both won earlier in the summer. Dennis told us “ It’s been a great year for me – winning 3 awards is amazing, but I’m especially pleased to win an award for work in my home town. It was a wonderful project”. The winning Hothouse project involved 180 children from Doncaster primary schools who worked with Liverpudlian poet Levi Tafari to produce an anthology of poems on the theme of ‘hot’. The poems were then used by jazz-trombonist Dennis Rollins to inspire a suite of compositions entitled “Rhythms of Fire”. Fern Creative’s production team finally produced a series of 3-screen multi-media projections linking the words and music. The whole event was premiered at Doncaster Civic Theatre. The £1,000 awarded to HotHouse will go towards a future arts project for young people featuring Fern Creative Media and Dennis Rollins.
Doncaster’s HotHouse Festival benefits from Fern Creative Media The borough’s annual HotHouse festival has received a generous contribution from Doncaster company Fern Creative Media who donated their prize of £1000 for winning the 2006 Arts & Business Award. The company won the top prize in the Arts & Kids category for their collaboration with Doncaster jazz trombonist, Dennis Rollins, on the HotHouse festival’s ‘Rhythms of Fire’ project which was premiered at Doncaster Civic Theatre. HotHouse was created by Doncaster Council with the support of Arts Council England. It aims to give both entertainers and audiences a new take on performing arts and culture. Mayor Martin Winter said: “I sincerely thank Fern Creative for their donation and for investing in the HotHouse festival. It is an important event in Doncaster’s calendar as it promotes high-quality artists who are well know in their field and encourages many Doncaster residents to see an exciting and diverse range of shows and performers.” The winning HotHouse project involved 180 children from Doncaster primary schools who worked with Liverpudlian poet, Levi Tafari, to produce an anthology of poems using the theme ‘hot’. The poems were then used by Dennis Rollins to inspire a suite of compositions. Fern Creative’s production team then produced a series of 3-screen multi-media projections linking the words and music.

Click here to return to the Fern Creative Media Ltd website or watch excerpts from the HotHouse festival.