A city restaurant is helping local talent find its voice after discovering a young busker on the streets of Derby and inviting him to take to the stage.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five-year-old Liam Hulmes was the first artist to open the new live music nights at COSMO Derby<\/a>, following a long-standing relationship with the popular all-you-can-eat restaurant.<\/p>\n Liam first came to the attention of restaurant manager Sid Panday, who spotted him performing while passing through Derby. Impressed by his strong vocals and talent, Sid invited him to perform at a special event at the restaurant.<\/p>\n Now, following five years of collaboration, COSMO Derby has chosen Liam as the first performer to launch its new acoustic music evenings.<\/p>\n Liam said: \u201cI feel incredibly honoured to be the first artist to launch the live music evenings here at COSMO. The team has supported me from the very beginning and I\u2019m genuinely grateful for every opportunity they\u2019ve given me.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying at the restaurant was one of my first bigger gigs and really helped build my confidence as an artist. Since then, it\u2019s opened the door to more bookings and exciting opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a period where I stepped away from music, but getting back on stage here reignited my passion.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m now writing my own songs and recently reached more than 500,000 views on TikTok in just a month, with 11,000 at one time, which has been amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really grateful to Sid and the team. It\u2019s really nice to feel so appreciated and to be part of such a reputable venue.\u201d<\/p>\n Liam, who has performed at events at the restaurant including its annual birthday celebrations and charity events, plays a mix of original songs and popular covers, including music by global superstar Ed Sheeran, who recently left praise on a social media post of Liam covering one of his tracks.<\/p>\n Manager Sid Panday has recently been nominated for a 25\/26 Derby Civic Award by former Mayor Councillor Ged Potter in recognition of his longstanding support for charitable initiatives, including providing venues and opportunities for fundraising and community engagement.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI heard Liam a few times on my commute to work and thought his voice was so powerful, with such great energy when he performed.<\/p>\n \u201cAt our annual birthday celebration, I wanted to bring that energy into the evening and invited him to perform for us. That was five years ago now, and Liam has been a regular ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the sake of variety, we are always on the lookout for other talented musicians in the city to perform with us.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to support local, up-and-coming talent. We can see Liam is going places and we are honoured to be part of his journey.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past 12 years, COSMO has raised thousands for local causes. In 2019, its \u2018Charity Tuesdays\u2019 saw children dine for \u00a31, with proceeds supporting Derby County Community Trust projects such as Rams in Kenya. A Peppa Pig promotion raised \u00a3750 for When You Wish Upon a Star, and during the 2020 lockdown COSMO delivered free meals to Treetops Hospice staff as they cared for patients at home across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.<\/p>\n Director of COSMO Group, Kan Koo, said: \u201cCOSMO has always been about more than just food \u2013 it\u2019s about bringing people together and being part of the communities we serve.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re proud to have been part of Derby for more than 12 years and to have supported a wide range of local charities, events and initiatives over that time.<\/p>\n \u201cDiscovering and supporting local talent like Liam is a perfect example of what we aim to do \u2013 creating opportunities, celebrating creativity and giving people a platform to grow.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing part of the wider movement focused on \u2018Bringing The East Midlands Together\u2019 is something I am incredibly proud of. Over the last few weeks, it has been inspiring to see so many passionate individuals, organisations and community leaders working together to create purpose, opportunity and hope across the region.<\/p>\n \u201cAt COSMO, we believe businesses should play an active role in supporting communities and we are excited to continue supporting initiatives that make a genuine difference across the East Midlands.\u201d<\/p>\n -ENDS-<\/strong><\/p>\n This press release was distributed by Penguin PR<\/a>. To find out more contact Sarah-Louise Elton<\/a> on 01332 416228 or by email at\u202f[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source penguinpr.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Talented acoustic singer Liam Hulmes spotted busking on the streets of Derby is given a stage at COSMO Derby A city restaurant is helping local talent find its voice after discovering a young busker on the streets of Derby and inviting him to take to the stage. Twenty-five-year-old Liam Hulmes was the first artist to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2436647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[339596,361420],"class_list":["post-2436646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-derby","tag-pr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COSMO-Derby-backs-local-talent-with-new-live-music-events.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2436646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2436648,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436646\/revisions\/2436648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2436647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2436646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2436646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2436646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/penguinpr.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Liam-Hulmes-with-Derby-COSMO-manager-Sid-Panday--768x1024.jpeg\")