Our Trustees

Our team of trustees oversee the governance of Sound Connections and guide us on our mission to achieve our charitable objectives.

Our trustees meet on a quarterly basis to discuss all aspects of the organisation, including strategy, finances and staffing. In addition they support specific projects on an occasional basis, such as the development of the marketing strategy and website. In addition, two members of Wired4Music, age 18-25, serve for two years as young trustees. They will also often be seen at Sound Connections events or representing the organisations at partner events.

  • Norton York

    Norton York

    Chair of Trustees

  • Andrew Frame

    Andrew Frame

    Trustee

  • Esther Bokuma Lenda

    Esther Bokuma Lenda

    Trustee

  • Gemma Knox

    Gemma Knox

    Trustee

  • Mathilda Taylor

    Trustee

  • Milli-Rose Rubin

    Trustee

  • Nanret Senok

    Nanret Senok

    Trustee

  • Sasha Mattock

    Trustee

    (she/her)

Norton York is founder and chairman of RSL Awards, the world’s specialist contemporary performing arts examination board. He started out as a trombone player performing in bands while studying music at Sussex University and latterly as a session player with artists including Billy Ocean, Paul Jones, Ruby Turner and Edwin Starr. His work in education started in his mid-twenties when he founded Europe’s first pop music summer school, Brighton Rock in 1988, prompting attention from the UK’s media to its mix of performing, production and business education which has been a hallmark of Norton’s courses ever since. Norton moved onto write and edit Oxford University Press’ first book on the music business ‘ The Rock File’ and created a ground breaking set of pop music courses at West London Institute of Higher Education. This led to the founding of RSL Awards, first through its Rockschool graded music exams, and subsequently to launching the Commerical Music department of the University of Westminster in 1992.

Since then, many of Norton’s students and RSL alumni have succeeded and include leading figures in the music industry such as Luke McGrellis (Universal) and Sam Winwood (Kobalt), and artists as diverse as Ed Sheeran and Jess Glynn, bands including Reef, The Feeling and Rudimental, Mercury nominated jazz saxophonist Denys Baptise, gospel star Muyiwa Olarewaju, as well as producers and songwriters including Fraser T Smith, Matt Prime, and Paavo and Jono of Above & Beyond.

In 2021 Norton wrote ‘Pop Music Education in the U.K. 1960-2020’ in which he accounts for the development of teaching pop music in all its styles from schools, further and higher education institutions to community settings for the first time, including the pioneering contribution of Sound Connections.

Norton is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Andrew Frame is a Chartered Accountant (ICAEW) and corporate finance advisor. He is a Director at Grant Thornton, the sixth largest accountancy firm in the UK, where he supports businesses in the education and training sectors with their strategic growth plans. His experience covers acquisitions, disposals and fundraisings for a wide range of UK and international clients, entrepreneurs and private equity firms.

He is passionate about the opportunities education and training can provide to young people, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for social mobility. Although not musically gifted, Andrew enjoys a wide variety of music and attending concerts.

Esther “Estée Blu ” Lenda Bokuma is an R&B-Jazz Artist, Writer, Music Executive and Founder of BLU WAV Artist Wellbeing from London, UK.

Since launching her career as an Independent Artist in 2015, she’s been supported by Help Musicians, AfroPunk, COLORS, the MOBO Awards, NME and Camden Roundhouse.

She has been involved in Wired4Music since 2017, co-producing and hosting various events for young musicians and music professionals. Estée has a background as a qualified French Teacher and currently has over 8 years of experience working across the music industry as an Artist, educator and music professional, with key skills across artist development, facilitation, consulting, major label brand partnerships and indie label operations. She also has several features in publications such as Music Business Worldwide, PRS Magazine, Music Week and MixMag.

Estée sits on various executive boards including Sound Connections, The F-List and The Richard Antwi Scholarship promoting equality. In 2022, Women In Music 2022 Roll Of Honour inductee Christine Osazuwa nominated her as a Music Week Rising Star, due to her activism. In November 2023, she completed a 6-month fellowship with the Creative Impact Research Centre Europe based in Berlin, and published a report about the mental health, wellbeing and working conditions of Black Artists in Britain.

Gemma Knox is an experienced marketing & business professional with over 14 years of brand and communication experience across Europe. Gemma has worked in both large networks and small independent companies in the creative industries in London and Amsterdam.

Gemma is Managing Director, Northern Europe for Virtue, a full service creative agency born from VICE, the fastest growing youth media and entertainment company. Gemma is responsible for leading and growing the business within the UK, the Nordics and Europe.

In her previous role at Sunshine, Gemma spearheaded Sunshine’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction partnership, orchestrating a string of retail, media and talent partnerships. Outside of work, Gemma is a trustee for the charity Sound Connections and an active mentor at Bloom, a professional network for women in communications. She is also in the process of launching a jigsaw business.

Mathilda Taylor is a freelance Music Programmer and Creative Producer, based in London. Since graduating from Goldsmiths College, University of London with a First Class Honours Degree in Design, she has worked with a number of charities and organisations, including Live Music Now, Somerset House, East London Dance, We Out Here festival and Nick Ryan Studios.

Mathilda has been involved with Wired4Music since 2021, after receiving funding from the Generate scheme to relaunch her project SPOOZIC (Space, Sound & Music), a live event project that creates paid opportunities for artists and musicians to perform in unique spaces. With the help of Generate, she curated and produced a sold out show of experimental electronic music at St Mary le Strand, a baroque church in central London, and has delivered further SPOOZIC events since.

This experience collaborating with musicians has been deepened by her A&R role at West One Music group, in which she discovers and recruits musicians, composers and producers from across the world to create original music compositions for media.

At present, Mathilda is working closely with the BAFTA and Emmy award winning sound artist, Nick Ryan, to develop ‘The VoiceLine’ a unique sound instrument for voice, sound, music and audio storytelling, in the hopes of taking the installation world-wide.

Ultimately, Mathilda’s work is underpinned by a core belief in the power and importance of collectivity, and believes in the potential of music and sound to achieve just that.

Milli-Rose is a musician and writer. Using her personal experiences, she writes and performs material around topics including mental health, the housing crisis in the UK, and how creativity has become a form of therapy throughout uncertain chapters and times. As well as previously working for Roundhouse, and being a part of Sound Connections work with Wired4Music, she has started to lead her own events for young people as well as developing creative facilitation workshops.

Nanret Senok is a solicitor at the Competition and Markets Authority. She completed her undergraduate law degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and LLM at the University of Law. Nanret’s legal expertise extends across competition law and regulation, consumer law, and public law. Nanret also has a keen interest in music, theatre and art and has previously worked as a gallery co-ordinator at a community interest company art gallery.

Sasha currently works in advocacy for special educational needs and disability in a variety of settings and has a background in psychology. She works for Islington Special Education Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service as a community engagement and Young People’s worker. As well as this Sasha works as a freelance dance artist for Corali Dance Company and Share and has just completed her mentee role working as a musician at the Royal Brompton and Harefields hospital. Sasha is also part of the young artists collective at Siobhan Davies Dance.

Music was a big part of Sasha’s life, growing up in the north of England and playing percussion in many different brass bands. Her practice is currently exploring how to bring together psychology, music and movement together to enhance wellbeing.

About Sound Connections

We believe every child and young person in London should have the opportunity to experience music-making.