Sound and Music in partnership with Heritage Quay is excited to announce Sara Rahman as the selected artist for Beyond the Edge, a new open call launched in August of this year.

The call provides one composer with the opportunity to explore the British Music Collection's physical archive based at Heritage Quay in Huddersfield, and produce a new sonic work in response to their findings. A celebration of the history of the British Music Collection and Sound and Music's founder organisations, the project runs alongside Heritage Quay's Cutting Edge exhibition, which focuses on New Music in the 20th Century.

Sara Rahman is a British-Algerian interdisciplinary composer, musician and researcher who classically trained in cello and voice. She graduated in 2022 from the Superior Music Conservatory of Catalunya (ESMUC) with a Masters in Film Composition. 

Sara works with voice, electronics, field recordings, found audio, and smaller ensembles as well as large group compositions. She has received commissions from Delfina Foundation, Sculpture International Rotterdam, and Sound and Music to create works for radio and composition alongside releasing on 3024. 

Her work also leans towards soundtrack for film and curating a bimonthly residency on stegi.radio which invites new and exciting artists from the Arab and African diaspora to partake in idea that ‘music forges communities.’ 

Beyond this, Sara also performs solo and in a collaboration with Francisco Morgan with their upcoming performance at the SONDER event curated by Serah Boom and Cantdefine.me in collaboration with Jokkoo Collective at FOC, Barcelona on 28 October 2023. 

The sonic work created by Sara as part of this project will be premiered at an event at Heritage Quay on 15 November. The work will also be shared via our social channels and newsletters, permanently hosted on the British Music Collection website, and submitted as an acquisition into the physical archive at Heritage Quay.

Image: Sara Rahman by Gan Lockhart at Iklectik, London. August, 2023

On being selected for the open call, Sara said:

"I look forward explore and respond to a great deal of knowledge and offerings from artists who have come before, giving the opportunity to perhaps finish an unfinished piece, idea or consider new and interesting ways to present historic pieces in the archive. 

Building from materials in the collections, I hope to tell a story of heritage and history in the U.K which embarks from the perspective of difference and disparity, considering how music has always been a force to unite and inspire communities."

Keep up to date with Sara by following her Instagram and Soundcloud, or heading to her website.

For updates on upcoming events and exhibitions, follow Heritage Quay on X.