UK music creators Anaïs, Chris Ryan and Midori Komachi head to Brazil for immersive musician residencies
The British Council and PRS Foundation announce that UK music creators Anaïs, Chris Ryan and Midori Komachi will each spend up to four weeks in Brazil as part of the Musician in Residence programme.
The residencies offer an immersive opportunity to create original work, build networks, reach new audiences and explore the different cultural influences in Brazil.
The three UK based musicians selected will spend time separately in three Brazilian cities from this month: Anaïs has been paired with the city of Salvador; Chris Ryan with Sao Paolo; and Midori Komachi with Diamantina. During their residencies they will collaborate with local artists, write new material and explore new creative and professional opportunities.
Each musician will spend four weeks in their new home, giving them a unique opportunity to work with different musicians, absorbing the local culture, developing their professional networks, exchanging ideas and reaching new audiences. Activity will also engage artists, teachers, students and the wider local communities, aiming to raise awareness of UK and Brazilian creativity.
The UK based musicians are:
- Anaïs – A multi-talented singer and musician, Anaïs has lived multiple lives. Moving from Toulouse, to Dublin, to Dakar, to California and finally to London, Anaïs’s feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere has added many colours to her creative palette. Her music explores narratives of blackness, but purposefully seeks to defy any attempts to reduce Blackness into a singular narrative, instead showing human nature in all its complexity. Anaïs’s style transcends genres; her tone is fearless and urgent, her sound a languid haziness. Paying homage to Nina Simone, Anaïs’ debut single “Nina” touches on themes of reclamation and freedom. Her latest project “Darkness At Play” carefully exposes a world in decay, yet resists the temptation to minimise this world to its doomed fate and goes on to explore political contradictions, selfhood, and the divine feminine.
- Chris Ryan – Vocalist, drummer and producer Chris Ryan writes and tours with post-punk/jazz act Robocobra Quartet, who have received critical acclaim from the likes of The Quietus & BBC Radio 3 and invitations to perform at Montreux Jazz Festival (CH), Latitude Festival (UK) and SXSW (USA). Chris’ work as a writer has seen performances on BBC Radio 1, premieres by the Ulster Orchestra and sync on the HBO documentary Game Of Thrones: The Last Watch. He also spends a lot of time in the studio working with other artists as a producer and engineer; most recently trip-hop influenced noise rock act Just Mustard (Beggars Music) and collaborative duo Exmagician (Bella Union).
- Midori Komachi – Midori Komachi is a violinist, writer and composer who has developed a diverse career in bridging cultures through music. Komachi’s works explore music in relation to space, architecture and cultural heritage of places. Over the years, she has written music for site-specific projects, including Musicity x Sculpture in the City and LIFE Exhibition commissioned by Maggie’s Centres (2017-19). Some of her recent projects include writing music for UK cosmetics brand LUSH and LUSH Spa in Tokyo, and curating music for the Courtauld Exhibition (2019-20) in Japan. She has performed extensively throughout Europe and Japan, appearing in venues such as Tonhalle Zurich, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Philharmony Warsaw, and Wigmore Hall. Alongside her solo performances, Komachi is also the concertmaster of Symphonova. As a bilingual writer and speaker specialising in the research of British music, she has published a book on Frederick Delius in Japan, which has been featured widely on the national press.
