AMPLIFI Jan 2024

The Queen's Hall presents Season 3 of our gig series showcasing the sounds of modern Scotland.

With artists hand-picked by guest curators Arusa Qureshi and Halina Rifai of We Are Here Scotland - staged in our intimate performance space - AMPLIFI presents an exciting opportunity to see new and rising artists in a setting designed to amplify their voices and put them centre stage.

Performers:

Belly Rachel is a Malaysian singer/songwriter based in Scotland. Ever since the release of her debut single (‘Ride or Die’), Belly has begun making waves in the Glasgow indie music circuit, with her powerful vocals and honest songwriting.

Samantha Maya (Maya's Radio Orchestra) is a Glasgow based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who uses looping to create textures with dense harmonies, classical instrumentation and pithy lyrics. She was the recipient of the Paolo Nutini Songwriting Scholarship 2022 through the University of the West of Scotland. Her tracks explore disappointment and the human condition, the philosophies of ‘home’, and draw on her childhood experiences of being mixed race within a chocolate-box cotswold village. Her genre is best described as alt-folk, meandering through Scottish folklore and tradition, crunchy dissonances, and wrapped up with honey-like vocals.

Ria Andrews is an Edinburgh based, singer-songwriter and multidisciplinary artist. Exploring the complexities of emotion (as much as a twenty-something could) through her music, she aims to bring the intimacy of her bedroom pop to the stage.

Curators:

Arusa Qureshi is an award-winning writer, editor and speaker with a passion for music, diversity and accessibility within arts and culture. Her book about women in UK hip hop, ‘Flip the Script’, is out now via 404 Ink. She has bylines in The Guardian, NME, Clash, Time Out, The Forty-Five and The Scotsman.

Halina Rifai is a podcast producer, music writer, PR & digital marketer. She founded music site Podcart in 2009 and went on to become a podcast producer, working with the likes of BBC Scotland, The Big Light, Mental Health Foundation, Fringe of Colour and more. She works in PR & Marketing with Scottish Women Inventing Music and Dardishi: a creative platform for Arab & North African women and gender monitories.

Supported by Creative Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council.

Winner of the Creative Edinburgh 'Inclusion' Award.