FROM the traditional songs handed down through generations by Rottingdean’s The Copper Family, to Brit Award-winning former BIMM student James Bay, music has run through the heart of Sussex for centuries.

Today the focus is on the young bands and songwriters schooled in the British And Irish Modern Music Institutes in the city centre, or learning their trade at venues including Concorde 2, The Prince Albert and Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar supported by city promoters Lout, One Inch Badge, Melting Vinyl and the Resident-sponsored Spectrum night.

One band to pique the excitement of commentators is Brighton band Black Honey, who look to have an exciting year in 2016.

The last decade’s big hitters have included album chart-toppers Royal Blood, pop-hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks, singer-songwriter Tom Odell and Mercury Music Prize nominees British Sea Power, The Go! Team, The Maccabees and Bat For Lashes.

But it’s not just pop music – classical composers Ralph Vaughn Williams, John Ireland, Jerusalem composer Sir Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar all had strong Sussex links, either as residents, or regular visitors.

And the city also has a healthy alternative tradition.

While the UK was locked into Britpop in the mid-1990s, seafront nightclubs were playing host to big beat, spearheaded by Hove’s Fatboy Slim. His second Big Beach Boutique saw 250,000 revellers shut the city down in 2002.

And in 1990 Levellers showed their true underground status by selling 100,000 copies of their debut album Weapon Called The Word without ever breaking into the UK charts. Many of the bands who followed them, including Mercury Music Prize nominees Electric Soft Parade, benefited from The Metway studios which Levellers opened in 1994.

David Courtney launched an augmented reality musical walk of fame along Brighton seafront between the Palace Pier and Concorde 2 in 2014.

The walk paid tribute to 40 musical figures from the city’s history, ranging from mods The Who and Rod Stewart who had played at the old Flamingo Club to current resident Nick Cave.

“Brighton is a pioneering place for so many things but it’s always been a hotbed of music,” said Courtney, the songwriter and producer who worked with Shoreham’s Leo Sayer in the 1970s.

“Outside London you would be hard-pressed to find somewhere with so many names attached to it.”