Sound and Music and British Council partner to build global bridges through new music collaborations
We are proud to announce a new partnership with the British Council to deliver an international New Music Commissioning Programme: 2025/26, as part of the British Council’s Culture Connects Programme. This creative and cultural exchange initiative will pair three original music creators from the UK with peers from Official Development Assistance (ODA) partner countries to collaboratively compose and share new music that responds to our shared human experience.
Building on our successful Digital Bridge programme with the British Council in Mexico in 2022, the New Music Commissioning Programme 2025/26 will facilitate cross-cultural creative experimentation, dialogue and inclusion. Through a curated programme of artist development, coaching, co-creation and broadcast opportunities, the project will facilitate meaningful artistic exchange and spotlight original new works across experimental radio and digital platforms in both partner countries.
There was an overwhelming interest when the open call opportunity was announced in June with 270 applications from composers and music creators from across the globe. Today, we and the British Council are delighted to announce the six artists who will be participating in the scheme: Yantó (Brazil), María Gabriela Rubio Hernández (Colombia), Fahmi Mursyid (Indonesia), Tony Onuchukwu (UK), RIEKO (UK) and Yasmin Rai (UK).
The artists will work in pairs to co-create new works which will be broadcast on our long-running radio show, The Sampler Mixtape, on Resonance FM in the autumn, and in-country platforms in the host countries. The works will also be included in our Minute of Listening education platform to bring these global voices into UK classrooms, offering children unique ways to learn about culture through sound.
Profiles of the partnership pairs, updates on their creative journeys and the new work they produce will be shared later in the programme.
Composers
Rieko Whitfield is a mythological world builder and “experimental pop witch” emerging from the London art scene. She released her debut EP “Regenesis” in 2023 via Diasporas Now, and performed internationally and at the Barbican Centre, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.
Yantó is a Brazilian singer, composer and performer whose work bridges popular music, experimental sound and performance art. They fuse Brazilian traditional music with electronic textures, exploring gender, sexuality and social issues. He has performed widely in Brazil and Latin America, both solo and with projects like Bloco Explode Coração, a traditional carnival group.
Yasmin Rai is an interdisciplinary artist and musician. She has performed and composed for Serpentine x Stone Nest as part of their Back to Earth programme, Prototype Publishing at the Horse Hospital, and the ICA, where she was selected for the ICA Young Creatives programme as a sound artist.
Tony is a South London composer, recording artist, sound designer, and former medical doctor from Lagos. He creates music for podcasts, documentaries, and physical spaces, exploring Afro-Caribbean identities through neo-colonial perspectives while fostering discussions on race and innovation. Recording under B£AMS and Nu Garçon, he's released music on No Pain in Pop, Kit Records, Sonic Router and Moshi Moshi Records.
Fahmi Mursyid is a contemporary musician, composer, sound designer and producer based in Bandung, Indonesia. In his music practice, he began releasing recordings under various monikers and labels since 2011. Fahmi uses acoustic instruments, electronic (software & hardware), found objects, and computer to create glitch sound, sampling, granular synthesis, shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex-simple musicality.
María Gabriela Rubio Hernández is a Colombian composer and interdisciplinary artist working with electroacoustic music, mixed composition, acoustic music, performance, and sound art. Her practice explores taboo, the body, and the sonic potential of everyday objects, often blurring the lines between composition and staged action.
Visit María Gabriela's profile
Supported by the British Council
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We do this through our work in arts and culture, education and the English language. We work with people in over 200 countries and territories and are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2022–23 we reached 650 million people.
About Culture Connects
The British Council’s Culture Connects Programme links UK cultural professionals and organisations with their international peers and audiences by enabling connections and networking, providing intelligence, and catalysing and facilitating creative collaboration, showcasing and touring. Culture Connects nurtures collaboration that will lead to building future relationships, capacity building, collaborative projects and increase professional networks. The aim is to enrich creative connections and opportunities and support the economic development of both individual practice of key international influencers, and in turn their countries’ creative sectors.
See also
In Motion is our flagship artist development programme for anyone in the UK working creatively with music and sound. The programme is shaped around the development goals of the composers and supports artists in taking the next step in their practice. We support 10 composers over 18 months to design and undertake their own artistic development journey.
The Essentials Fund is a small grant of between £250-£500 to support your work through paying for self-learning projects, equipment, mentoring, and other direct costs for a project or to support your artistic development in other ways. The Essentials Fund is open to any composer, music creator or artist working creatively with music and sound.
In the Making is our annual trailblazing artist development programme for young people aged 14-18 and it is the only programme of its type in the UK that supports young composers. Across 12 months, 50 young people will be supported to grow their confidence and expand their skills and creative ambition in an open and accessible environment.