Seminar Series: Level Up in Audio

The Level Up in Audio seminar series was conceived as part of YSWN’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. After the success of the talks given by artists and audio professionals at our 2019 Level Up! events, we wanted to continue to connect the YSWN community with women and minority gender artists and audio professionals, even while physical events were temporarily impossible.

Running from December 2020 until December 2021, the series comprised 12 monthly seminars, delivered via Zoom. Five of the sessions featured musicians and sound artists talking about their own practice, offering insight into creative inspiration and practical methods. The other six seminars were focused upon skills essential to the audio industry, covering both technical/vocational knowledge and career-boosting ‘soft’ skills. A final seminar offered a networking opportunity for members of the YSWN community to meet when Covid-19 restrictions made this impossible.

Speakers to date include:

• Supriya Nagarajan (Cross-Cultural Music-Making)
• Kelly Jayne Jones (Artist talk)
• Mariam Rezaei (Creative Practice in Lockdown)
• Sarah Angliss (Artist talk)
• Leslie Gaston-Bird (Introduction to Immersive Sound)
• Olivia Louvel (Artist Talk)
• Anna Bertmark (Introduction to Sound Design for Film)
• Shell Zenner (How to Get Your Music Heard)
• Amble Skuse (Artist Talk)
• Lia Mice (Artist Talk)

Each seminar is for an audience of around 15–25 women and gender minority people, with numbers limited to ensure that audience members can interact with the speakers and ask questions in a safe and welcoming space. The online format means that as well as overcoming pandemic restrictions to reach the existing YSWN community, who are mostly based in Yorkshire and northern England, the events have a wider geographic reach across the UK and internationally, with audience members logging on from mainland Europe, Africa and North America.

To make attendance more practical for people with varied commitments, the seminars take place in a mix of lunchtime and early evening timeslots. They are also recorded and later uploaded to YSWN’s YouTube channel, so can be enjoyed by anyone unable to attend the original session.