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Decades Of Shaping UK Live Music: SJM Concerts’ Chris York Passes
Chris York, director of SJM Concerts, has died at the age of 55 following a long illness.
York joined SJM Concerts founder Simon Moran in 1993, and was instrumental in building the business into one of the UK’s leading concert promoters, which, among countless other achievements, holds the record for the biggest-selling UK concert tour in history, Take That’s “Progress Live” in 2011.
SJM Concerts laid out some of the milestones in York’s career in an obituary it published on its socials today, July 25.
“He began his career working at the Venue in New Cross, then with John Curd at Straight Music, and finally with Tim Parsons at MCP Concerts, at which point he joined SJM and formed a solid an unshakeable partnership and friendship with Simon that would last the rest of his career,” it reads.
York has worked with some of the world’s biggest names in live music, including Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Chemical Brothers, Lily Allen, Massive Attack, Robert Plant, Underworld, Lorde, Morrissey, Placebo, Suede, and Stereophonics, among many others.
Many of these acts had been working with York since the very beginning of their respective careers.
Since 2006, working alongside The Who’s Roger Daltrey, live producer Des Murphy, and fellow SJM Concerts director Rob Ballantine, York was the lead booker for the UK’s annual Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concert at The Royal Albert Hall.
See: Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts Break Fundraising Record In UK
He’s helped launch and develop the annual Country to Country (C2C) festival, which has been instrumental in the genres growing popularity across the UK. York received the Jo Walker Meador International Award from the Country Music Association in 2021, one of many accolades he’s received in his career.
Most recently, in 2022, he received the prestigious Bottle Award at ILMC’s Arthur Awards, which honors live professionals for their lifetime achievement.
He was also presented with the National Arenas Award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Live Entertainment Industry” by the UK’s National Arenas Association, which is when the picture above was taken.
The obit penned by his former team at SJM Concerts concludes: “Chris is survived by a concert promoting company that has won the Music Week Promoter of the Year Award 10 times, holds the record for biggest selling UK concert tour in history, the biggest selling UK comedy tour in history, employs over 80 full time staff and a similar number of freelance staff, and currently has over 1,000 shows on sale. It is a company shaped and forged by Chris, Simon and Rob over 3 decades that has helped define the UK’s live music scene.”