Yorkshire Sound Women Network’s ‘Changing Gear’ Project: Sounds in Station Hall: New electronic music inspired by 200 years of modern railways.
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RCH/003, Ron Cooke Hub, Campus East, University of York (Map)
Event details
ALL WELCOME
Changing Gear is a project run by Yorkshire Sound Women Network – a Yorkshire-based community interest company working nationally to champion gender equity in audio – in which three women music creators from Yorkshire have been asked to make new electronic music inspired by the sounds, stories and dreams of railways and those who lived or worked with them. Rosie Parsons, Diya Tailor and Rhiannon Kenny-McGrath have used sounds from the National Railway Museum’s archives, particularly those collected by sound engineer and railway enthusiast Peter Handford (1919-2007). In today’s seminar, Abi Bliss from YSWN will introduce the project as a whole, and the composers will each talk about their processes of working creatively with the archive materials to create new pieces. The compositions can be heard in full the next evening (Wednesday , at the York Concerts performance, Changing Gear: Railway 200, in the Rymer Auditorium, University of York.
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Rhiannon Kenny-McGrath is a folk singer, flautist and song writer based in Leeds. Recent work explores fusing traditional music, field recordings and electronic samples in her live performances. Rhiannon has performed with her duo, Wychbury, and her quartet, Helian, at festivals across the country including, Glastonbury Music Festival, Moseley Folk Festival, The Green Gathering and Sidmouth Folk Festival. In 2024 the duo released their debut single 'Geordie' which received high praise on Tim Walker's BBC Folk Show.
Rosie Parsons is an audio producer and artist based in Leeds, working in a hybrid space between electronic music and radio documentary. Her audio journey began with making work for radio arts festival Radiophrenia, and since then she has produced sound walks, documentaries and audio bus journeys for organisations such as Leeds Museums and Galleries and the British Library, and co-created live audiovisual performances with spoken word artists and improvising musicians. Her work often focuses on unearthing hidden histories, exploring utopian ideas and their legacies and weaving these into a rich sonic tapestry.
Diya Tailor is a Leeds-based drummer, composer, and producer whose work blends electronic textures with organic performance to create immersive, narrative-driven sound worlds. A recent music production graduate, she has composed for fashion films, graphic design showreels, and sync, while also producing a psychedelic blues/hard rock EP. Her creative practices explore the relationship between sound, movement, and place, most recently through a found-sound project inspired by the London Underground. Drawn to genre-fluid approaches, she combines live instrumentation with sampling and sound design to build rhythm-focused atmospheres. This approach shapes her latest commission with the National Railway Museum, where themes of travel, rhythm and cultural connection meet.
Abi Bliss is a Director and the Coordinator and Project Producer of Yorkshire Sound Women Network. She is also a freelance writer (including as a longtime contributor to The Wire magazine), editor and producer, with a particular interest in gender issues in experimental and electronic music. Abi is also active in the YSWN Huddersfield Makers group and enjoys making improvised and audiovisual pieces.
Yorkshire Sound Women Network is a Yorkshire-based community interest company working nationally to champion gender equity in audio. We inspire and enable women and people of minority genders to explore sound and music technology, running projects devoted to artistic development, education and network-building. We also work with the audio industry to promote equality, tackle discrimination and increase opportunities. yorkshiresoundwomen.com
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Wheelchair accessible