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Glenn Williams – Musician, Sax and Clarinet Player; A Photograph by Franco Chen.

1st November 2021, 12am

To mark BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2021, each week throughout OCTOBER, in our Artist’s Corner, we brought you images from our Photographer Franco Chen. Born in Jamaica, of Chinese heritage, Franco became ‘Resident Photographer’ at the Irish Cultural Centre when it opened in 1995. He has taken hundreds of photographs of many of the Irish bands and artists who performed here over the years and he’s captured so many ICC magical moments.

Throughout Black History Month 2021, we brought you some of Franco’s photographs of  some of our wonderful friends in the Black Community and we also gave you a glimpse of Franco’s unique eye and intuitive gift as a portrait and event photographer and as a London street photographer.

This week, to round off the ICC’s Black History Month celebration, we bring you the final photograph from Franco’s BHM gallery.

This image is of Glenn Williams, a musician, saxophone and clarinet player. He is the son of a Jamaican father who saw action in the RAF Air Sea Rescue mission, (1944-48)  and was based in Plymouth during and after World War II.

Glenn has appeared in the musical, Five Guys Called Moe, a homage to the music of Louis Jordan. He is also a former member of the all Black British group, the “Jazz Warriors’, a formidable group of 25 musicians which included Courtney Pine and Gary Crosby!

A resident of Hammersmith, Glenn is also a local music teacher, who takes pride in his teaching and also supporting local events and he often frequents the ICC and is one of our wonderful patrons and dear and beautiful friends.

Glenn also often plays for the Poetry evenings at Hammersmith’s Amnesty International Bookshop and he played at private views for so many local artists in The Artium  Art Gallery, which is right now  being demolished as part of the development for the new Town Hall.

A faithful visitor to gigs at the ICC, Glenn is presently rehearsing for the acclaimed theatre  play “Playboy of the West Indies”, adapted by Trinidadian playwright, Mustapha Matura from the Irish playwright John Millington Synge’s iconic Irish script “Playboy of the Western World”.

ICC Digital has truly enjoyed celebrating Black History Month 2021 and we look forward to continuing to sharing and celebrating our friendships, our music and our shared cultural connections and journey.

All of Franco Chen’s previous photographs  for BHM 2021 are available to view on ICC Digital ‘Artists Corner’ where you will find lots more information about each image and artist; to read about them simply go to ICCDIGITAL; and just to round off ICC’s BHM celebration we have included all of the images below.

Thank you Franco Chen and thank you to all of our friends in our local Black Community. Enjoy!