News

Making Tracks 2021

27 September 2021

Residency Types

Making Tracks Open

Artforms

Composition Music

We are delighted to welcome Making Tracks to Cove Park.

Making Tracks is an environmentally-focused international music exchange programme, based around an annual UK residency and tour. They bring together exceptional artists to showcase diverse music, initiate new collaborations and explore strategies for music-based environmental engagement. This year’s residency, held for the first time at Cove Park, will give selected Fellows the chance to create new collaborative works, explore and develop strategies for environmental engagement, and receive professional development and career advice from a team of industry experts.

Making Tracks are hugely excited to begin a new chapter at Cove Park – a residency partnership based on our shared passion for creative experimentation and collaboration as well as environmental engagement through music and the arts.

“One of the most exciting purveyors of international music in the UK.”
– Songlines Magazine.

Team at the residency
The Making Tracks residency at Cove Park will be facilitated by Merlyn Driver and Luna Silva, continuing an approach developed in partnership with the ground-breaking US music organisation Found Sound Nation, who co-facilitated the inaugural Making Tracks residency in 2019. Merlyn, Luna and their support team will be joined at the residency by the videographer Fergus Dingle, as well as industry speakers including, among others, Tom Besford (founder of English Folk Expo), musician and broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal (BBC 6 Music) and music marketing specialist Amelia Ideh (Bandcamp, Brighter Sound).

Making Tracks is supported by Arts Council England and the Goethe Institut.

Merlyn Driver

Making Tracks’ Director, Merlyn, is a songwriter, vocalist, creative producer, writer and nature enthusiast focusing mainly on traditional and international musics, and on connections between music and the environment. Born in Orkney in the north of Scotland, Merlyn’s unconventional upbringing and studies in anthropology and ethnomusicology have played a key part in shaping his music and determination to unite music with social and environmental causes. He has worked with Making Tracks since 2016 and took over from Founding Director Katerina Pavlakis in 2019, turning what was a travelling concert series into a new environmentally-focused music exchange programme, based around an annual residency and tour. www.merlyndriver.com

Luna Silva

Luna is a singer-songwriter and choir-leader who was born in France; the daughter of an English actress and a Spanish clown. In 2016 she spent time in Indonesia, carrying out research on two Indonesian ukulele-like instruments, the cak and the cuk. She performs in the female polyphonic vocal trio Samaïa – focusing heavily on Turkish and Kurdish music – as well as part of her own quartet whose arrangements touch on eastern European, English folk, pop, rock and jazz. Luna was a Making Tracks Fellow in 2019 and this year will be co-facilitating the residency, as well as facilitating Making Tracks youth music workshops on tour and offering creative production assistance. www.luna-silva.com

Kaviraj Singh

Kaviraj is a British santoor player, vocalist, sound engineer and occasional craftsman. His journey with the santoor started at the age of six under the tutelage of Ustad Harjinderpal Singh, senior disciple of the international maestro, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, alongside the guidance of his pioneering father, Ustad Dharambir Singh, MBE. Kaviraj is now making his own mark by showcasing the beauty and intricacy of one of India’s finest instruments, the santoor. Kaviraj was a Making Tracks Fellow in 2019 and this year will be providing technical and creative production assistance on the Making Tracks tour. www.kavirajsingh.co.uk

Fergus Dingle

Fergus is a talented writer, director and filmmaker who specialises in delivering brave and thoughtful content, often connected to education or the environment. Among other work, he has contributed to the award-winning short video #NatureNow about natural climate solutions featuring the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and journalist George Monbiot. Fergus will be capturing elements of the residency at Cove Park on video. www.fergusdingle.com

Inspired by diverse music from around the world, and the natural world itself, Making Tracks brings together extraordinary musicians to create new work. Three editions of this residency have taken place to date, in 2021, 2022, and 2024.

In 2024, during a two-week residency at Cove Park, eight musicians developed new work in collaboration – including several pieces inspired by this year’s theme of Oceans – before heading off on a UK concert tour. Making Tracks is based around the idea that intercultural and interspecies approaches to music-making have the power to bring people together and foster a greater appreciation of both cultural diversity and biodiversity.

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