The Angela Carrington Awards is a competition for open mic singers celebrating the diversity of the open mic scene in and around London. Now in its 7th year, this year’s audition day held in March, was organised and run by Catherine Lima at the Vortex Jazz Club.

Catherine writes:

“Thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s event. We had a great day with 24 participants from a wide variety of open mic venue across London. Our judges this year were: Lee Gibson, Paul Pace and
Charlotte Keech – many thanks to all three of them for their time on the day and to Paul Higgs, our fantastic accompanist.

The four nominated singers from the audition process were:

Dawn Cooper– (The Ram Jam)
Noa Alvarez – (The Swan and the Orange Tree)
Angela Kearney – (The Vortex)
Su Holliday– (Little Bread Big Jam).

These four singers went on to sing at the Angela Carrington Awards Ceremony, hosted by Singer/Songwriter, Brian Shaw on the 8th April. The judges on that night were Oliver Weindling of the Vortex and jazz singer, Dexter Moseley.
 
Angela Kearney, pictured above, was the worthy winner of the Angela Carrington Award 2012. The awards ceremony night was very well attended and over the two events a total of £1,232 was raised for Bipolar UK.

The event was started by Brian Shaw in 2006 in memory of Angela Carrington, a jazz singer and classically trained musician and a firm supporter of the open mic circuit. Whilst suffering from clinical depression, she took her own life in 2005. Raising awareness of mental health problems plays a significant part in this annual event.”