Between the remembered and the anticipated is the now.
We are weaving the remembered and anticipated together, we are weaving the now.

Amble Skuse – Biog

 

Amble is a composer and sound artist who uses disability theory, body sensor technology, spoken word interviews and electronics to create unique sound works. She is interested in the interface between the disabled body and the exterior world, and has explored this through numerous sound walks using her wheelchair. Amble is a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer 24/25, recently won a Special Commendation Daphne Oram Award for her work in electronic music, and was selected as Scotland’s representative for the International Society Contemporary Music Festival 2024.

Amble recently wrote Divergent Sounds in collaboration with Kings College London. The piece uses interviews with NeuroDivergent people, electronics, body sensors and a 13 piece orchestral ensemble. It was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank. She was one of five Creative Scotland International Creative Entrepreneurship Fellows, a BBC Performing Arts Fellow, has gained several large scale grants from Creative Scotland to produce work and was a BBC alumni fellow. She was also a Mimu Glove research resident in 2022.

 

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What people say

 

“Skuse’s laptop textures offer slow-burning, elemental accompaniment throughout: flutters and shutter-clicks in The Dun Broon Bride, watery bubbles in Babylon, and falling rain in the beautiful closer, Long A-Growing, in which the grass keeps on lengthening in life as well as in death. So many intricate ideas here, so beautifully done.” – The Guardian

 

“Spectacular… groundbreaking even. It opens the shutters to something entirely original” – fRoots

 

“…passages of great liminal mystery and power, echoing and remoulding the lyrical contents – ballads of murder and death – to create huge, all-encompassing soundworlds that gives the material a powerful new lease of life… essential listening for fans” – Songlines

 

“…pays its respects to the past, while reaching forward into innovative new technologies. The piano harmonies are understated and complex, and the electronics whisper like ghosts…” Wire Magazine

Achievements

Amble’s work has been performed internationally from Canada to China.

In 2012 she undertook the prestigious Adopt a Composer project for Sound and Music and Making Music UK. She was one of five Creative Scotland International Creative Entrepreneurship Fellows for 2013, a BBC Performing Arts Fellow (2013), has gained several large scale grants from Creative Scotland to produce work and was recently awarded a BBC alumni fellowship. She holds an AHRC Scholarship for her PhD research.

Amble recently won a Special Commendation Daphne Oram Award for her work in electronic music, and was selected as Scotland’s representative for the International Society Contemporary Music Festival 2024.

She was one of five Creative Scotland International Creative Entrepreneurship Fellows, a BBC Performing Arts Fellow, has gained several large scale grants from Creative Scotland to produce work and was a BBC alumni fellow. She was also a Mimu Glove research resident in 2022.

Her work Memory Lane with Kris Drever (of Lau) was featured on Radio 3’s Late Junction with Max Reinhardt, her work Chapels with Splendid Glass Windows was featured on BBC Scotland’s Classics Unwrapped, and her project Remembered Imagined played to packed houses in 2013 and was reviewed in The Scotsman as “fearless innovators” and “a web of influences and interconnections” The piece Clachan Beo from this performance was described as “the natural melodies in a South Uist’s man storytelling served as launchpads for Skuse’s witty, skittering music… Old tunes, maybe, but magically fresh takes on them.”

Amble wrote a bespoke piece for instruments and technology for the British ParaOrchestra. Charles Hazlewood described her as a “fierce creative spirit! We couldn’t ignore Amble’s brilliance (a true sonic adventurer)”. Her album What News with Alasdair Roberts and David McGuinness was described in The Guardian as “Skuse’s laptop textures offer slow-burning, elemental accompaniment throughout. So many intricate ideas here, so beautifully done.” Her work We Ask These Questions of Everybody is a digital opera exploring the lives of Disabled people in the UK. It was premiered at Scotland’s Sound Festival and gained a 5 star review from The i “Politically important and an artistic triumph”.

Amble recently wrote Divergent Sounds in collaboration with Kings College London. The piece uses interviews with NeuroDivergent people, electronics, body sensors and a 13 piece orchestral ensemble. It was premiered to a packed house at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank.