We’re thrilled to be working with Harrods restaurant, Studio Frantzén. Studio Frantzén is the latest restaurant from former footballer, and now critically acclaimed Swedish chef, Björn Frantzén, and serves Nordic gastronomy with Asian influences.
Set on the fifth floor of Harrods, Studio Frantzén, is a contemporary and stylish restaurant featuring a buzzing dining area, private dining booths and two bars serving cocktails and spirits, including one with incredible views of London.
We have been working with Studio Frantzén since it’s soft launch in November 2022, providing music consultation and DJ services. Our DJ’s are at Studio Frantzén Thursday – Sunday nights from 7:30pm.
Studio Frantzén is open daily until late, book your seat at one of London’s most hotly anticipated restaurants HERE.
To hear some of our DJs click HERE. And for lighting and booth options, click HERE.
Well, here we are, one year on. And whilst we’ve definitely not reached the finish line yet (is there even a finish line?), it certainly feels like we’re on the home stretch now. It helps that Spring is all around, which always feels like a time for starting afresh.
Just before the pandemic hit, our business was thriving, we were about to celebrate our 10th birthday, and we had just worked on our biggest event to-date; providing Glow-Show LED drummers for ‘We Day’ at SSE Wembley Arena to a crowd of 13,000 children (imagine!) Things were looking really promising, but talk of Covid-19 was inescapable, and we started to feel things shift very quickly.
In little over two days, all events were off. We were in crisis mode. We had no idea what the future of our business looked like, or indeed if there was a future at all. We spoke to The Sunday Times about what it felt like in that moment.
For the following days and weeks we were just firefighting – it certainly proved a good exercise in crisis management – although not one I care to repeat any time soon. Perhaps more importantly, it felt like everything suddenly came into sharp focus for us.
We had twins two years prior to the pandemic, which was almost like a dry run for the full lockdown experience. We were forced to stay home a lot during those first couple of years, and found ourselves mostly going through the motions, not ever having time to pause or reflect on anything other than what we should have for dinner. And now here we were forced to stop. We needed it. We now had an opportunity to look at the business with fresh eyes. Having come so close to losing it, we were reminded of why we set it up in the first place, and everything we loved about it. We really didn’t want to close the door on it.
James and I met as musicians, music has always been our passion. Sound Generation has always been about the music. We set out to build a bespoke, quality-driven business, working with only with the best musicians around. Plus, we’ve always been passionate about promoting independent musicians, and championing the arts. We think life is so much better for it.
We’re undoubtedly the lucky ones. We’ve stayed safe and healthy. The business has stayed afloat, and is still very much here to stay (unless the world has another surprise up it’s sleeve for us…)
Looking forward, we feel really optimistic about Sound Generation and its future. SG sometimes feels like our 4th child (although thank God, there’s no nappy changing involved with this one!), we want to see it grow old! Although, we’re hoping our kids take the reins at some point, whilst we kick back with Pina Coladas on a beach somewhere (anywhere would do, frankly…)
Thank you to everyone who has supported us this last year, we are so grateful. Our thoughts go out to all those that have lost loved ones, and those who have struggled with the constraints of lockdown.
Let’s hope things will get brighter now.
Please grab a hot drink (or a stiff one – no judgement here!) and take a moment to listen to a playlist we’ve put together of all the independent artists we’ve loved listening to this year. Click HERE to give your ears a serious treat.
We’re thrilled to launch online music lessons! You can now book a private guitar, piano, singing or songwriting lesson with one of our incredible tutors – they make the perfect gift for the music-enthusiast in your life! Or, if you’re feeling indecisive, we also sell gift vouchers.
Our tutors are some of the most accomplished, in-demand musicians in the UK, who have worked with global music stars, and performed on world stages. Read on to find out more about them.
Guitar lessons are taken by Jo Caleb, who is one of the UK’s most sought-after 7-string guitarists. He’s also a much in-demand producer, having worked with the likes of Beyoncé, Brandy, Craig David and The Sugababes.
Dan Swana takes the online piano lessons. Dan is an incredible singer/songwriter, who has performed at Wembley and the O2, and alongside the likes of Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder and more recently worked with Sting.
If you want to improve your vocal chops, then you will be in no better hands then one of the X Factor coaches – Ulrika Bergelind. A phenomenal vocalist, Ulrika’s also worked as a backing vocalist for Imelda May, James Bay and Alfie Boe.
Finally, if you fancy yourself as a songwriter then Nate Williams takes the songwriting lesson. A member of Jamiroquai and a multi-instrumentalist, Nate has released several original singles and EP’s, as well as working with Katy B, Vula and more recently joining Steve Winwood’s band.
Our online music lessons can be taken from the comfort of your own home – perfect if you lead a busy life, and especially convenient whilst we’re in another lockdown. We contact the lesson recipient before their first lesson to find out about any previous experience, and what they would like to get out of the session. Our tutors will then follow up to arrange a suitable day and time.
Our piano shells continue to be hugely popular for events and video shoots. This month we were thrilled to work with iconic department store, Selfridges. We provided our white baby grand piano shell for an event they hosted. SG vocalist James performed, taking romantic song requests from passing shoppers!
Click HERE to enquire about hiring our black or white piano shell for your event.
We recently worked with Visit Britain on a recent James Bond event they hosted to celebrate the launch of the new James Bond film, ‘No Time To Die’ – the 25th instalment in the James Bond series. Jazz vocalist, Michael, performed a selection of songs from the Bond films including ‘Skyfall’ by Adele, recently ranked the best James Bond song. The event took place at members club, The Conduit in Mayfair, London.
To enquire about booking Micheal, or any of our artists, click HERE.
Our DJ’s have been busy at Bingham Riverhouse again this month having been booked for some gorgeous winter weddings. We are preferred suppliers at The Bingham Riverhouse, and so our artists regularly perform at weddings and events there. It’s the perfect setting for a wedding, well worth considering if you’re looking into wedding venues!
Our artists also perform for their monthly live music nights. Vocalist, Clare Sophia, will be performing next, on March 17th.
Music for Events Music for Venues Music for Weddings News
We’ve provided some fantastic music entertainment for corporate events, weddings and parties over the last few months. Grab a cuppa, put on some music (why not check out our latest playlist HERE), and have a read of our June events round up!
We provided a Mariachi band for one of Soho House’s gorgeous members’ clubs, High Road House, in Chiswick. Guests enjoyed lively Mexican music and Margaritas!
SG’s most sought after band, the Briggs Street Players, performed live at the new Tottenham stadium, for the Champions League Quarter Final match between Spurs and Manchester City.
There was live Blues from SG act, Sly Fox Express, at The Big Smoke in Leicester Square. The Big Smoke regularly hosts live music events and serves up grilled fare aplenty!
The coolest Cuban band in town, Havana Kings, performed for communication strategy advisors, Hawthorn, at their annual Summer party.
Havana Kings are a Cuban Salsa band, and are the perfect addition to a summer garden party, or any event where you want a lively and fun ambience! They’re available from a duo right up to a full 9-piece orchestra. They’ve performed at The Royal Albert Hall, The National Theatre, The 606 Club and at countless weddings and private parties.
We’ve provided music entertainment for several wedding parties over the past few months. Highlights include; The Briggs Street Players performing at a wedding at Gloucestershire venue, Elmore Court; DJ Callum entertaining wedding guests at Sandhurst Military Academy; and DJ Zulu provided the musical backdrop for a wedding at the Oyster Shed. Several of our acts have also been performing for wedding parties at Richmond favourite, Bingham Riverhouse .
For all wedding enquiries and bookings click HERE.
Music for Events Music for Venues Music for Weddings News
Welcome to our March events round up!
We’ve had a fantastic few weeks, working with some wonderful clients and some fab new venues. Read on to see what we’ve been up to!
SG acts have been performing at one of London’s most impressive venues, The NED. Our acts have been performing weekly in the Members Restaurant, as well as appearing on the Nickel Stage.
Gypsy Jazz quartet, Nouveau Boheme, performed for an event at OXBO Bankside, in February. OXBO is a Hilton Restaurant & Bar serving English classics with a twist, and bottomless brunches. Did someone say bottomless?!
Click HERE to enquire about booking Nouveau Boheme.
Singer and pianist, Kate, performed at an event for the Royal Lancaster London. Our lovely new piano shell, Berta, also made an appearance!
Click HERE to enquire about booking Kate, or Berta(!)
We continue to work with luxury river yacht, Silver Sturgeon. SG acts that have performed aboard the yacht recently include, Frida, Havana Kings, and Jazz vocalist, Megan (pictured).
We worked with exclusive travel company, Niquesa, again this month. We provided a Japanese Koto player for the launch of their new luxury travel packages to Japan.
Click HERE to enquire about booking Japanese music for your event.
WEDDING FAIR | THE OYSTER SHED “A wedding on the banks of the Thames – what could be more perfect?”
We were delighted to have been a part of a hand-picked selection of recommended suppliers to exhibit at The Oyster Shed’s most recent luxury Wedding Showcase.
Guests were welcomed into the venue with a refreshing, after work cocktail, before being introduced to a small number of suppliers ranging from floristry and calligraphers to bakers and, of course, music!
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CAMINO LONDON | SHOREDITCH Thursdays and Fridays throughout June, you can catch SG DJ’s performing only the best live music to kick start your weekend playlist!
With summer quickly approaching, make the most of the evening sun and join us for a cocktail or two!
SILVER FLEET We are thrilled to be working on the water with private charter company, Woods’ Silver Fleet, as their newly appointed, preferred supplier for live entertainment!
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THE NEDS BIRTHDAY BASH Recently The Ned London turned one! And we were honoured to have been asked to perform at their birthday bash spectacular earlier this month.
And you can catch a glimpse of our very own Briggs Street Players performing to a lively crowd over on Twitter!
BRIGGS STREET PLAYERS It’s been an especially busy month for Soul band, Briggs Street Players.
The boys had an exciting performance at the opening of Soho House group’s new venue, White City House at the end of April. They also had a whopping three weddings over the course of just four days at fantastic venues, Claridges, Coworth Park, and Chiswick House – followed by a show at The Ned for their 1st Birthday Party, supporting none other than Gabrielle!
APRIL NEWSLETTER Click the image below to read our April Newsletter!
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WHITE CITY HOUSE We were delighted to provide a live music for the opening of this incredible new Soho House venue in White City, west London.
Over three nights, SG artists Daniel Walker, Nicola Sipprell and Jessica Berry performed in the lounge bar for drinkers and diners.
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EASTER WEEKEND! Our DJ’s were serving up some hoppin’ Easter tunes at our local Camino residences in Monument and Kings Cross over the Easter weekend.
Although we were sad to have missed out on their chocolate and coffee, cocktail masterclass! Fingers crossed they bring this one back for Christmas – we’ll be first in line to try it, that’s for sure!
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MOTHERS DAY | LANES OF LONDON Right in time for Mothers Day, we teamed up with Lanes of London and started a regular weekend music schedule!
Starting with a Harpist for Saturday Afternoon Tea and Gypsy Jazz for those scrumptious Sunday Roasts!
(1:00 – 4:40)
BRIDEBOOK WEDDING AWARDS 2018 Thank you to all our fantastic clients for our rave reviews – out of hundreds of participants, we have won the Silver Bridebook Wedding Awards 2018 Badge of Excellence !!
“Badges go out to those who received the most reviews and testimonials from their community of couples”
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VALENTINES DAY For all you lovebirds, this Valentine’s Day SG singer, Louise Golbey, will be performing a little ‘Valentines Jazz’ at the Park Lane Marriott Hotel, free to all drinkers and diners from 6.00 – 9.00 pm.
Not yet made any plans for date night? Book your table now!
You can also be serenaded by SG artists at Sketch and Corinthia London’s Bassoon Bar.
This month we have an exciting number of weddings taking place at The Bingham featuring performances from artists such as ESQ, Adam Harris, the Briggs Street Players and DJ Zulu.
“ESQ strings and Dream Big jazz Band were absolutely amazing and exceeded all expectations!” Alicia and Nick, Bride & Groom
We were delighted to attend this years wedding fair at The Bingham hotel.
With lots of weddings already upcoming, it was great to meet so many happy couples and share a little taster of the SG experience.
“BECAUSE WE CAN CAN CAN” Step back Santa! There was nothing Christmassy about this staff party! Artist DJ Zulu played an eclectic mix of Electro-Swing and Commercial party music at a Moulin Rouge themed Christmas party for well-deserved staff at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, in the decadent Hansom Lounge.
“The DJ was great and loved by all, we had a really good night and received great feedback from all the team”.
ESPA LIFE AT CORINTHIA
Earlier this month artist Libby Shone had the pleasure of performing at one of the UK’s number one spa destinations!
Libby played an upbeat and lively set for private members and workers of the ESPA Life Spa, Gym and Salon, in one of our regular SG residences; Corinthia London’s Bassoon Bar.
“It was great. We know and love the singer already, hence we requested her! Members loved the music and enjoyed the party as well”.
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EAST INDIA CLUB Christmas may feel forever ago for most people, but for the staff at East India Club, Mayfair,it’s been extended and we couldn’t be happier about it!
After all, what better way to kick the January “back-to-work blues,” than with a party!
Featuring DJ James in The Smoking Room with a mixing table.
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LIVE MUSIC AT THE NED We are thrilled to announce that you can now catch an SG artist performing every week at popular London venue, The Ned!
This evening we have SG duo Frida performing Live for all drinkers and diners from 9 pm.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hoping you all had wonderfully relaxing Christmases and feeling refreshed and ready for all that lay ahead in 2018.
2017 was such a great year for us in many ways, and we are very grateful to all our fantastic clients for making it so.
We had a fantastic time at Brides The Show this year! It was great to meet lots of wedding couples and chat through their ideas for music entertainment on their big day. We also met some fab exhibitors, including our super lovely neighbour, and amazing photographer, Faye Cornhill.
Some of our acts also performed over the weekend, take a look at a small collection of images below! …
We had an absolute blast at Brides The Show last month! It was great to meet so many wedding couples, and find out what music entertainment they were looking for. We’re looking forward to working with some of them over the next few months!
Last month Camilla Parker Bowles was a surprise guest at the Hampton Court Palace Flower show and visited Paul Martin’s ‘A Music Lover’s’ garden where SG harpist, Camilla, was performing. We were delighted that Paul went on to win the Silver Gilt Medal for his beautiful garden!
Sound Generation will be exhibiting at Brides The Show later this year. It’s our first time exhibiting at this prestigious, annual showcase, and needless to say, we are very excited about it!
For any brides to be, Brides The Show is an absolute must for getting inspiration for your big day.
This year’s show takes place at The Business Design Centre in Islington from the 2nd – 4th October, and will feature the very best in Bridal including some of our acts performing for you, LIVE!
More details coming soon. To book your tickets to the show, click HERE.
We’re very excited about launching our new service: curating music playlists for businesses. If you are looking for music playlists to fit your venue’s brand, then we can help. With years of experience, we are experts in creating background music to suit any environment. We curate playlists for restaurants, bars, hotels, workspaces and everything in between! Listen to some of our playlists at all the Camino branches, as of March.
If you would like to make an enquiry about music playlists for your business please click HERE.
We’re now providing harpists for the Hansom Lounge at St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, every Sunday as well as Saturday. Catch some of SG’s harpists performing from 2:30 – 5pm. Whilst you’re there, why not enjoy a spot of afternoon tea too?
You can also catch SG acts performing in the Booking Office every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7pm.
All live music events are free to drinkers & diners.
Welcome to our brand new website!
We’ve been so excited about launching the site because we feel that it represents us and our wonderful artists, perfectly.
So please have a look around – we hope you like what you see!
A huge thanks go out to Sam Devito, Tom Scott-Malden and Suj Gadhania (web monkeys/uber friends), for their design, creativity, and for their infinite patience.
Garrett and Garrett are an award-winning videography team based in London. We began working with just recently, but from day one have been blown away by their creativity, skill behind the camera, and their positive attitude. We cannot thank them enough for the videos and photography they have done for us.
If you are ever in need of a promotional video – these are your guys!
Murray is a fantastic photographer who took the shots of us in and around Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick, which we used for the ‘about us’ page, and whose work also features elsewhere on our site. He also very kindly let us use one of his photos on our new homepage! Murray has recently featured in several wedding blogs and magazines.
Planning a wedding? Need a photographer? You do the math!
He’s photographed the likes of Ed Miliband (no, not the now infamous bacon sandwich shot) and his clients include Tatler, Land Rover, Evening Standard and Jaguar. We love his photography and were thrilled when he offered to work with us on a few projects including photographing Irene and her band performing at the Forge for the London Jazz Festival last year.
We are now providing Spanish guitarists for Bar Pepito in Kings Cross, a gorgeous Andalusian bodega, specialising in sherry, tapas and hand carved jamón. Our flamenco artists will be performing on Wednesday evenings from 6:30pm. (N.B. Castanets are obligatory.)
We’re also super excited to now be working with, not one, not two but TRES (that’s Spanish for three) Camino venues!
SG DJ’s will be throwing down soulful latin, old skool, and commercial flavours at Camino in Kings Cross, Blackfriars and Monument.
Marriott, West India Quay
Last month we helped launch the brand new terrace of the Lobby Lounge at the London Marriott West India Quay Hotel. DJ Zulu provided the chilled and eclectic soundtrack. Starting September 11th, we will provide a DJ every Thursday evening in the Lobby Lounge.Make sure you pop in;it’s a fabulous space, with an incredible Gin selection and cocktail menu (we intend to work our way through it four drinks at a time), and of course – great tunes!
Vocalist/guitarist, 
Libby and Dave from band, ‘
End of show silliness! 
We are now providing Spanish guitarists for Bar Pepito in Kings Cross, a gorgeous Andalusian bodega, specialising in sherry, tapas and hand carved jamón. Our flamenco artists will be performing on Wednesday evenings from 6:30pm. (N.B. Castanets are obligatory.)