Alpha Sessions to mark 18th Birthday

As part of Radio Brockley’s 60th birthday celebrations, its “new music” show Alpha Sessions will also be celebrating a landmark birthday.

The show, started by Emma and Alan Joyce back in 2008, will be welcoming back a number of artists to mark 18 years of the programme, which has welcomed hundreds of independent artists to the studio from across the UK and Europe, as well as guests from Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia.

The show was originally hosted by Emma Joyce and was called “Behind The Music” and was only available in the hospital, with a few highlights on mySpace. But in 2012 it got a new name – Alpha Sessions – as it sought to increase its audience with the rise of Twitter and Facebook. It led to a big increase in artists from across London and the southeast.

In 2016, at Radio Brockley’s 50th celebrations, Ron Laver joined the team and brought with him his camera!! This was a game-changer, as the sessions were filmed and made available on YouTube. The sessions have since received tens of thousands of views.

In 2020, during Covid, Alpha Sessions introduced its “at home” sessions which saw artists from across the world able to take part.

When the sessions fully restarted in the studio in 2021, a range of guest hosts came in, including regular Lucy Wroe, herself an artist and former guest. This led on to a new format of having artists being regular guest hosts – and have included regular contributions from the likes of Gigi Harland, Erica Jean, Charlotte Shaw and Kat.

In the most recent years, Macie Lewis joined the team and supported an expansion in the outreach on social media, which now includes Instagram and TikTok. The sessions are now also available as podcasts on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon among others.

You can follow the Alpha Sessions on Instagram and TikTok at @alphasessions, as well as on YouTube and podcast. You can also ask your smart speaker to “play Alpha Sessions podcasts”