The Orchestra (For Now) has been announced as the winner of this year’s Green Man Rising competition, which will see them open the 2024 festival on its iconic Mountain Stage.

The London-based act was joined in the final by TTSSFU, ladylike, Nature Kids and Mari Mathias, appearing at Cardiff’s iconic Clwb Ifor Bach where the winner was announced.

Now in its 15th year, the Green Man Rising competition is all about offering a platform for new and emerging artists, providing a key step into the live music world. The 2024 competition attracted a record number of applicants with more than 3,500 entrants, and a long list of 25 chosen from there.

The Orchestra (For Now) said: “What a ridiculous moment winning Green Man Rising was! All the 25 shortlisted were top drawer, let alone the amazing shortlist so it’s very surreal for us to win Green Man Rising - we only formed a year ago and don’t have any music out yet! We’re feeling ecstatic and love Green Man and want to say a huge thanks to Green Man Trust for making this all happen. We’ll see you in the valleys! Diolch!”

The runners up all will play the Rising Stage across the weekend and will be given the opportunity to make a professionally recorded Green Man Session.

The Orchestra (For Now) was chosen as the winner by top music industry experts Matt Cooper, Director at Candy Artists, Adam Williams, Head of Music at Clwb Ifor Bach, Elan Evans, Freelance Artist Management, Louisa Robinson, Promoter at FORM and Simon O'Neill, Music Agent and Head of Touring at Pure.

The longlist was selected by key industry tastemakers like Adam Walton from BBC Wales, So Young, The Quietus, Vocal Girls, Buzz, Yuck, The Forty Five, Hard of Hearing and Secretly Canadian.

Green Man’s Fiona Stewart said following the Green Man Rising final event: “Supporting talented artists in their early careers is a privilege; massive congratulations to the finalists including The Orchestra (For Now), Ladylike, Mari Mathias, Nature Kids, TTSSFU it was an amazing feat to be one of the top five as the standard and number of entries has been extraordinary this year.

"The quality of acts made it a hard task for the judging panel to decide the winner and we are absolutely delighted that The Orchestra (For Now) will be opening our iconic Mountain Stage this year as the winner of the 2024 Green Man Rising competition” Fiona added.

“Massive thanks to our expert industry panel including Matt Cooper, Adam Williams, Elan Evans, Louisa Robinson, Simon O'Neill and our own Ben Coleman and the all the hard work whittling down thousands of entries to just one." 

You can find out more about The Orchestra (For Now) and the rest of the line up at this year’s Green Man festival here.