Info // Mission
About YSWN
About us
Yorkshire Sound Women Network (YSWN) was founded in 2015 by women working in the sound technology industry who wanted to use their skills and influence to address gender and racial inequality. Our mission is to support a flourishing industry which welcomes, encourages and progresses the inclusion of women and gender-diverse people at all levels from studio floor to board room, and reflects the diversity of its participating communities.
You can read more about why we’re working for equality in our Volume Up! report here or watch the video below:
What we do
YSWN enables the artistic and technical development of women, girls and gender-diverse people through access to resources, skills sharing, and collaborative opportunities. Through its network YSWN provides strong, skilled and professional role models who actively encourage participants to be inspired by and develop skills in sound and music digital technology. Our meetings and events are open to all women (cis and trans) and non-binary, agender and gender variant people. Men are welcome to support the network in other ways.
The story so far
Founded as an informal collective in 2015, in its first three years YSWN delivered over 80 workshops, facilitated new sonic creative practices through mentoring and skill-sharing activities, delivered high-quality public performances and community events and inspired new regional groups across Yorkshire and beyond.
With the help of organisational development support from Arts Council England, YSWN became a Community Interest Company in 2018. Our current work encompasses education, community and advocacy and we have delivered more than 450 events. You can read and download our latest Annual Review here.
YSWN’s work has benefitted from regional, national and international links within the music technology industry, including the companies Ableton and Spotify; partnerships with cultural organisations such as Sound And Music, National Science And Media Museum, Brighter Sound and hcmf//; academic connections with higher education institutions such as the University of Huddersfield, and links with high-profile practitioners working in sound technology.
Be part of our future
As YSWN continues to work towards its mission, we are very grateful for the support of our community, partner organisations, industry supporters and funders for helping make all this valuable work happen. Find out more about how you can support YSWN’s work here.
Please add your details to our mailing list for more info:
Meet the YSWN team
Abi Bliss
Programme & Engagement Lead/Director
As well as being a director, I’m YSWN’s Programme & Engagement Lead, taking care of communications and marketing, this website, YSWN-affiliated regional groups and YSWN’s artist-focused projects. I’m also a freelance writer, editor and producer with a particular interest in gender issues in experimental and electronic music and a longtime contributor to The Wire magazine. I organise the YSWN Huddersfield Makers group and enjoy making improvised and audiovisual pieces when I have time, which isn’t often enough.
Heidi Johnson
Operations & Development Lead
I’ve worked in the music education and arts sectors for over 20 years, with a particular interest in promoting musical inclusion through digital technologies. I was previously Director of youth music charity NYMAZ (now AMP Music), leading the delivery of activities under Youth Music’s strategic funding programme for North Yorkshire, brokering partnerships and securing new income streams. I’ve also worked for Live Music Now, hcmf//, Royal Northern College of Music and University of Huddersfield and am also Chair of &Piano music festival.
Emily Jones
Industry Lead
I’m a consultant, artist and coach with over 15 years’ experience in the music industry. I’ve worked in senior positions and programming roles at renowned venues and festivals including The Glasshouse (Sage Gateshead), the Barbican, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Symphony Hall Birmingham and others.
Diversity and inclusion, particularly around gender, has been a strong thread throughout my career: I’m a director of Selextorhood, I’ve taught music production for Saffron, co-founded Future Proof for Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section label and commissioned research on gender equity which was featured on Woman’s Hour and in the Guardian.
I produce music and DJ under the alias Echo Juliet.
Manuella Blackburn
Director
I’m an academic and composer of sound-based music. My music is focused on intricate details and the clustering and careful arrangement of small sounds within clear, polished sound worlds. Recordings of everyday objects, environments and instruments make their way into new pieces through the transformation of the ordinary into the fantastical. My research interests cover compositional methodologies, sampling and sample packs, intercultural creativity and EDI concerns in funding opportunities. I’m currently based at Keele University, where I am a Reader in Electronic Music and Sound Design.
Eva Davies
Director
I’m the Senior Label Manager at Come Play With Me and also manage Leeds artists Pop Vulture and Bug Teeth. At the age of 16 I set up event promoter GRRLS DO THAT TOO, which celebrates women and people of marginalised genders in the local music scene. Playing and performing music from a young age has given me insight into the treatment of underrepresented people throughout the industry.
After working as a Freelance Advisor for Youth Music, I am part of their Next Gen, receiving a Young Citizens Award for my events that aim to combat gender inequality. In 2021 I won Youth Music’s Young Entrepreneur Award for my work in creating safe spaces, and in 2022 Come Play With Me were awarded the Music Week Women In Music Awards Diversity in the Workplace Award.
Eddie (Liz) Dobson
Director
I’ve been involved in music and music technology since the age of eight, and have taught it for 20 years, working with undergraduates and children at various levels. Following an early classical music training I retrained in sound for media, starting out in location recording (concerts) and composing music for film. I now teach sound design and computer based sound design at the University of Huddersfield.
I am passionate about education and creating inclusive spaces for learning, particularly spaces that support women, girls and people of non-binary genders, to explore music and sound technology. I am a co-founder of YSWN, a National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Annie Jamieson
Director
As well as a Director of YSWN, I am Curator of Sound Technologies at the National Science and Media Museum, where I established sound and its history as a subject of collections, exhibitions and research.
By background I am a historian of science and technology but my interest in sound dates from my teens, when my life’s ambition was to be a front-of-house engineer for heavy metal bands. But as a young woman, in the 1980s, I was brutally rejected. Being involved in YSWN gives me the opportunity to contribute to changing this situation for women and people of minority genders today.
Jo Kennedy
Director
Following a long career in the environmental sector I decided to take a radical change in direction and pursue my creative interests more fully, studying for a BMus (Hons) in Creative Music Technology. This is how I first became aware of and involved with YSWN.
Having graduated in 2019 I now work as a freelance artist and technician. I make sound art, perform live experimental music, run technical and creative workshops and do live sound engineering for small events. I’m particularly interested in sound art as a means for environmental education and activism.
Supriya Nagarajan
Director
I am a South Indian vocalist working in immersive installation performances nationally and internationally. I create works that occupy the spaces created by curiosity, science and innovation and link all my music to the human brain.
One of the aspects of my musical interests is the sounds of the world around us which feature prominently in all my music. Hence the interest in Yorkshire Sound Women Network where my passion for sounds, gender equality and life collide.
Amy Beeston
Associate
I’m an audio researcher and sound artist based in Orkney. My work involves bio-inspired auditory modelling, perceptual constancy, hearing impairment, and the use of live audio analysis techniques in sound art and music performance. I’m a co-founding member of the Yorkshire Sound Women Network and its Sheffield sister-group, SONA.