Changing Gear: Meet this year’s artists

After sifting through a stack of fantastic applications, our judging panel have selected the three artists who will take part in this year’s Changing Gear programme:

Diya Tailor (top right) is a Leeds-based drummer, composer and producer whose work blends electronic textures with organic performance. A recent graduate in music production, her creative practice often explores the intersection of sound, movement, and place with works including a found sound piece inspired by the London Underground. With a passion for storytelling through rhythm and texture, she is drawn to immersive, genre-fluid approaches that merge live instrumentation with sampling and sound design.

Rosie Parsons (top left) is an audio producer and artist based in Leeds, working in a hybrid space between electronic music and radio documentary. Her audio journey began with making work for radio arts festival Radiophrenia, and since then she has produced sound walks, documentaries and audio bus journeys, and co-created live audiovisual performances with spoken word artists and improvising musicians. Her work often focuses on unearthing hidden histories, exploring utopian ideas and their legacies and weaving these into a rich sonic tapestry.

Rhiannon Kenny-McGrath (centre) is a folk singer, flautist and song writer based in Leeds. She has a degree from Leeds Conservatoire where she specialised in folk and traditional music. In 2024 her folk duo Wychbury was awarded the Alan Surtees Prize, allowing Rhiannon to purchase an SP-404 sampler and explore fusing traditional music, field recordings and electronic samples in her live performances. In 2024 the duo released their debut single ‘Geordie’ which received high praise on Tim Walker’s BBC Folk Show.

Thanks to everyone who applied and congratulations to our selected three! This week they paid their first visit to the archives at the National Railway Museum and next week they’ll be visiting the studios at the University of York. Look out for more details coming soon of the two performances in November…

YSWN is a PRS Foundation Talent Development Network Partner supported by PPL – Phonographic Performance Ltd.