First Glasgow UNESCO City of Music Artist in Residence appointed

Working with a range of community groups and choirs across the city, and supported by Glasgow Life’s Arts and Music teams, Richy will create a new film and choral work, Accents, investigating the idea of accents in Glasgow today.

He will also develop ways in which the finished work can be shared internationally, creating new connections through the UNESCO Cities of Music network, which includes Salvador, Brazil; Katowice, Poland; Adelaide, Australia; Sevilla, Spain; and Chennai, India.

As an artist, Richy is interested in how the architecture of a space might amplify or modify a voice. The new choral work will actively encourage the different rhythms, inflections and sonorities of multiple accents to bend and shift around each other, exploring the patterns of difference that makes.

It will be composed in a form that can be easily adapted for performance by choirs in other UNESCO Cities of Music to present the unique identity and accents of their own city.

The work will be premiered in a public performance at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in March 2019, when all the choirs and participants will come together to perform the score live alongside the film.

This residency is supported by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, where Richy is carrying out a PhD.

Richy Carey said:

“I think accents are amazing things to listen to. They’re so bound up with your individual identity but also how you relate to your communities. They change and grow with you, they’re all different but share inflections and lilts… they’re just so musical. It seemed like a useful metaphor to think about Glasgow’s musical heritage - that so much amazing music from across so many genres has come from the city, but they share a something, an identity, an accent.“

Councillor David McDonald, Chair of Glasgow Life and Deputy Leader of Glasgow City Council, said:

“This fascinating project will be driven by the rich and varied musical landscape of Glasgow, a UNESCO City of Music. Through the residency, Richy will draw on the experience and skills of local musicians and artists and the expertise and support of Glasgow Life staff, as he creates a new work to be premiered at one of the country’s leading venues, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.”