Youth led contemporary music

The focus of Rothko from the offset was youth led contemporary music.

To provide an open space for younger artists to collaborate, be creative, and form new approaches to music.

With our small team of youth creatives, we workshop new ideas, commission new works, and try to set the scene for a new kind of musicking

- one free from the constraints of the classical music industry

All our gigs have 50% of music by a female or non-binary composer, and represent composers of a non-white background.

Art can change the way we think

Art can make a difference

Art can be a unique emotional outlet

But for that to happen, it needs to be accessible to everyone

That’s our goal

1. Rothko?

Mark Rothko was an abstract expressionist painter living in New York in the 1950s, his works iconic as simple fields of colour seem to strike and move the viewer in intensely powerful ways.

Whilst he himself was not a multi-disciplinary artist, his work at the time was deeply influential for the likes of John Cage and Morton Feldman, and started to create a real dialogue, dissolving boundaries between art and music.

We are deeply inspired by his search for the deeper meaning in art, and his rejection of romanticism, academia and capitalism.

2. COLLECTIVE

Noun

- a cooperative enterprise