We select eight artists for each edition of Making Tracks, whose work is connected to musical traditions and/or the environment. During a two-week rural residency, the artists incubate new collaborative works, explore and develop strategies for intercultural and interspecies music-making, and take time out to develop their craft and career plans with support from a team of industry experts.

Following the residency, the fellows take their new collaborations (and solo performances) on tour, with a series of concerts at beautiful independent venues. We also carry out free workshops alongside our concert programme. The workshops provide young people (especially those facing barriers) with opportunities to take part in the collaborative creation of music. Workshop participants are also given free access to our public concerts.

Making music

During the Making Tracks residency (our UK residency is held at Cove Park, overlooking Loch Long on the west coast of Scotland), we facilitate new collaborative works among eight selected fellows from the UK, mainland Europe, and further afield, from duos to larger ensembles. Our approach to collaboration - largely based around themes of listening (to each other, the environment, and non-humans) aims to find new and meaningful musical overlaps. Each year we have a different specific nature theme, which provides further creative parameters.

Music as a vehicle for change

Making Tracks is based around the idea that intercultural and interspecies approaches to music-making provide a powerful vehicle for bringing people together and fostering a greater appreciation of both cultural diversity and biodiversity. Creativity and culture brings wide-reaching benefits to society as a whole, which is why we focus both on building the careers of our Making Tracks fellows, and widening access to culturally diverse music through our programme of public concerts and free youth music workshops.

Train-based touring

All artists selected from mainland Europe travel to the Making Tracks residency by train, as part of our work to explore and develop more environmentally responsible touring practices, and to help us reduce our carbon footprint at source. As part of this, we pay a daily stipend for each day spent en route, and using the journeys to start conversations about music and the environment. Since 2019, our focus on rail travel has helped us to reduced our transport emissions by an estimated 79%.

Read more about:

• Workshops and education
• Our environmental focus
• Our 2022 Impact Report