New Dawn is an our annual callout for musicians from Norfolk and Suffolk aged 14-25 to perform at First Light Festival. Since kicking off the programme in 2022, we’ve received 231 applications from emerging songwriters, bands, rappers and everything in between, platforming 82 acts at our festivals in the three years since.

Every application is listened to by our panel of industry experts, and for 2024 they were:

• Angelle Joseph (BBC Introducing Norfolk and Suffolk)

• Ben Street (Wild Paths Festival)

• Marcus Neil (Brighten The Corners)

• Helen Hayes (First Light Festival)

• Ian Johnson (Access Creative College)

• $ebuku (2023 New Dawn Headliner)

• Samantha Penman (aka Retro Firefly - New Dawn act)

Each year, the panel selects one act to play a headline slot on the festival’s main Sunlight Stage. In 2022, the judges selected dream-pop powerhouse Mosiah Levi for the Sunlight slot, while 2023’s top pick went to $ebbuku, an explosive young rapper. The 2024 New Dawn headliner is idiosyncratic pop artist Finn Doherty.  an Access Creative College graduate. And as part of our new partnership with Latitude Festival, Finn will also be performing there in July.

On top of the chance to perform at the midsummer festival, New Dawn applicants are offered ongoing support from the First Light music team throughout the year, including performance opportunities at East Point Pavilion (59 New Dawn acts have played the Pavilion since 2022) and career progression sessions.

As well as supporting musicians, New Dawn also nurtures emerging talent behind the scenes, providing 8 tech, sound and lighting students work experience since 2022. In January 2024 Jesse Quinn from the band Keane hosted an online session offering our New Dawn artists an inside into his career. We have also partnered up with other music festivals and venues across the region supporting our New Dawn musicians into performance opportunities including Brighten The Corners Festival and Sax Arts Fest. We also work with Access Creative College and Brighten The Corners offering young technicians the chance to work alongside our professional festival crew running the New Dawn Stage and our other festival stages.

Following on from the New Dawn STEP UP opportunity which gave four local young musicians the opportunity to receive a workshop from Tom McRae and perform with him on our Sunlight Stage, New Dawn alumni Maple Ward will be opening for Annie Dressner at our Moonlit Soundscapes event this year. Annie has also invited Maple to perform a song with her as part of her set.

As part of our partnership with Britten Pears Arts New Dawn artist Retro Firefly (aka Samantha Penman) recently undertook a week-long creative retreat at The Red House in Aldeburgh. Over the course of the week, Samantha was given much needed space to write some new songs, received mentoring from First Light and Britten Pears Arts and was connected into the other creative residencies which were taking place that week. Samantha has been invited back to First Light Festival in 2025 to perform her new work coming out of this residency. This follows on from our first New Dawn creative retreat in 2022 where Jake Raywood worked on his ‘Birdsong at Dusk’ EP which he subsequently performed at the 2023 Moonlit Soundscapes event.