AWATE, Emma-Jean Thackray and Tom Calvert AKA Redinho,  were selected to take part in the 2018-19 British Council and PRS Foundation’s Musicians in Residence Brazil programme.

Each musician will spend up to six weeks in Brazil where they will be able to write new material, collaborate with local artists and build professional and creative networks.

AWATE, a rapper with an Eritrean background, raised in Camden, London is hoping to create an EP in collaboration with the instrumentalists, singers and producers he meets in São Paulo, representing Brazilians’ real-life stories and weaving in melodic and rhythmic ideas from the São Paolo scene.

Emma-Jean Thackray, a jazz artist and an award-winning composer/trumpeter/producer, originally from Yorkshire and now based in London will be going to Bragança Paulista where she wants to develop long standing collaborative relationships based on friendship and artistic exploration.

Tom Calvert aka Redinho, a music producer, vocalist and composer, will travel to Fortaleza and hopes to discover some new instrumentation in Brazil and is open-minded about what music he might discover there: “I want to connect with people and communities, understand, research and experiment, and let this approach guide my direction.”

The Musicians in Residence programme was launched by the British Council and PRS Foundation in September 2011, with Gareth Bonello, Imogen Heap, Jamie Woon and Matthew Bourne relocating in 2011 and early 2012 to three cities in China.

The 2014 residencies saw Oliver Coates, Sam Genders, Arun Ghosh, Anna Meredith and Sid Peacock travel to China. From January to March 2016 Mira Calix, Kerry Andrew and Bella Hardy took part. David Lyttle, Emmy the Great and Quinta are the most recent musicians to spend time in China, with Sarathy Korwar participating in the one-off Musician in Residence, UAE.

The residencies have inspired each artist differently. Imogen Heap included the track XiZi She Knows, composed during her time in Hangzhou, on her 2014 album Sparks. In 2013 Gareth Bonello released the album Y Bardd Anfarwol, combining Welsh and Chinese folk music to tell the life story of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai, which won Welsh Album of the Year at the 2014 National Eisteddfod, and was nominated for the 2014 Welsh Music Prize. The track “Little Wonder”, on Jamie Woon’s Mercury nominated album Making Time (2016), was inspired by his time in China on the residency.