We are excited to introduce our new Resident Artists as part of our Drake Music Collective programme, a professional development initiative for Disabled musicians.
Give a warm welcome to Creative Facilitator Daisy Higman and Access Champion Ysabelle Wombwell who will be on a placement with us for 7 months.
Daisy will be focusing on mentoring early-career Disabled musicians through a bursary programme. Ysabelle will be focusing on understanding barriers Disabled people face to a sustainable creative career and exploring possible solutions.
They will also both be spending time working on a creative project, exploring the themes of radical inclusion and personal sustainability.
Ysabelle Wombwell
Ysabelle is a musician, composer and music producer. Her music is honest and evocative, often inspired by her experiences of depression, solo parenthood, abuse and exclusion, and is heavily influenced by her lived experience of racial and gender discrimination, and ableism.
Ysabelle has toured across Europe and her music has received both national and international airplay. Her performing highlights include supporting First Aid Kit, Baby Gramps and The Magic Numbers.
As a composer she has worked with Deafinitely Theatre, Freedom Festival, The Herd, and NPOs The Warren Youth Project, and ARCADE and has had the privilege of collaborating with Hull’s Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2021 Ysabelle received an Arts Council England DYCP grant, which helped her reestablish herself as a composer and performing musician after a substantial break when she became a parent. She has engineered and produced a range of artists including Rachel Croft, Jack Conman and Alice Clayton and her most notable producer credit is for the compilation album ‘Three Minute Heroes’ that received 4 stars from Mojo.
As well as being a working musician, Ysabelle also has a huge passion for activism and works as a creative producer and inclusion and Antiracism consultant within her local community. She has new music is due for release in early 2024.
Check out Ysabelle’s work:
Daisy Higman
Her work has taken her into schools, community centres, universities, drama schools, colleges, theatres, day-centres, yoga studios – even aquariums. She has worked with groups to create albums, demos, podcasts, gigs, installations and shows and has run career development programs and skills building workshops for young musicians. She also works part time as a Music Support Officer for the RNIB.
As a composer, Daisy has written music for theatre, film, dance companies, vocal ensembles, community groups, and choirs. Her work includes sound installations on a double-decker bus, a folk musical about cheese-rolling, a welcome message for extra-terrestrials performed at a satellite station, and the opening ceremony of a travelling museum.
She also arranges songs for her choirs and is particularly interested in collaborative vocal improvisation. She is working on a song cycle about birds, grief and transformation and developing a new piece about disability and utopia.
Check out Daisy’s work:
We would like to thank our generous funders for making this possible:
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
PRS Foundation
Foyle Foundation
