AMPLIFI May 2022

A new series of shows curated by Arusa Qureshi and Halina Rifai to showcase the sounds of modern Scotland.

Staged in our new performance space at The Queen’s Hall, this is an exciting opportunity to see new and rising artists in an intimate setting designed to amplify their voices.

The artists have been hand-picked by Arusa Qureshi and Halina Rifai who will also compere the evenings. They say, “Scotland is home to so many incredibly talented artists of all backgrounds and disciplines, who demonstrate perfectly the vibrancy of our music scene. AMPLIFI is a way to spotlight some of our very favourites, while also welcoming audiences back to live music in a more intimate setting. We're thrilled to be working with The Queen's Hall on this series and can't wait to celebrate these brilliant emerging voices with fellow music fans!"

Performers:

AMUNDA A British/Indonesian (by way of Australia), producer & singer/songwriter. She is an ARIA Award-winning & SAY award-nominated artist whose bands Operator Please & Bossy Love have both toured extensively internationally and released albums to critical acclaim. Now based between the UK & Denmark, AMUNDA is once again exploring new worlds, and is currently working on her own material while focusing on the co-writing and collaborations that have underpinned her esteemed career thus far.

jayda An Alternative Scottish Hip-Hop Artist based in Edinburgh/Glasgow. While still at the beginning of their career, they joined Hen Hoose in it's project Equaliser, and managed to release a wonderfully spurring and urgent song 'Revolution Retribution' in collaboration with AMUNDA. jayda’s production style is eclectic and their writing style; honest. Their live performances are full of emotion and energy.

Djana Gabrielle A 2019 Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Stage Winner, and one of the “most note-worthy performances” at the 2019 Kintyre Songwriters' Festival, Djana Gabrielle is a French-Cameroonian singer-songwriter who has been honing her craft on the Scottish music scene for a few years now. She released her debut EP, recorded in Glasgow, in late 2015 and toured around the UK and Europe to promote it. In 2018, she took on the challenge to write, record and release a brand new song each month, which earned her a "New & Notable" feature on the American music platform Noisetrade. She is now working on her next release.

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, and is part of the We Are Here Scotland team, supporting and amplifying the voices of creatives of colour in Scotland.

Halina Rifai is a podcast producer, music writer, PR & digital marketer. She founded music site Podcart in 2009 and has gone onto become a podcast producer, working with the likes of BBC Scotland, The Big Light, Mental Health Foundation, Fringe of Colour and more. She works within PR & Marketing with Scottish Women Inventing Music and Dardishi, a creative platform for Arab & North African women and gender monitories. She is also Communications Co-Manager for We Are Here Scotland, a space aimed at supporting and raising the voices of Black people and people of colour artists and creatives across Scotland.

Supported by Creative Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council.

Presented by The Queen’s Hall.