Hayley Suviste is a sound artist based in Manchester currently undertaking a Masters in Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Manchester. Her music focuses on the exploration of space, memory and narrative – transforming field recordings, oral histories and archival sounds into immersive compositions. Hayley’s music has been played internationally at festivals and sound conferences, including ICMC-NYCEMF (New York, United States), Matera Intermedia Festival (Matera, Italy), Festival DME: Sustainable Cities Symposium (Libson, Portugal), BEAST FEaST (Birmingham, UK), MANTIS (Manchester, UK), Mixtape: International Women's Day (Dundalk, Ireland), MUSLAB x I K L E C T I K (London, UK), Convergence 2019 (Leicester, UK), EASTN-DC (Manchester, UK), New Music North West (Manchester, UK) & MUSICA (Manchester, UK). Hayley will be recording the young people reading sections of their historical accounts and producing the recorded track which will play during the show.
What interested you about Making Manchester, and why did you decide to get involved?
I was approached by Emma and Jo from the Olympias Music Foundation back in August about working with them on the Making Manchester project. A lot of my work focuses on stories, heritage and personal experiences so the opportunity to be part of a project telling normally unheard stories felt like a real privilege.
How do you see Making Manchester being different from other projects you've been involved in?
A lot of my time as a sound artist is confined to working alone in the studio, so it has been great spending time out in the community and interacting with the people whose stories I’m involved in telling. The Making Manchester project has been a brilliant opportunity to do this, due to the focus of the subject matter. Going out into schools and recording stories first-hand has been inspiring, opening my eyes to the hidden stories of people in Manchester.
What are you most excited about, as part of Making Manchester?
I can’t wait to see the whole project come together for the live performance at Niamos! After working with these stories for so long, it will be great to have them out in the open for people to hear and respond to.
What do you hope to achieve in your role as part of the project?
In my role, I have recorded in total three hours of material from the pupils of Dean Ardwick Trust reading the 60 unique family histories that were researched and written by the pupils last year with Our Migration Story. From this massive archive of stories, I am creating a selection of short sound collages that refer to the different sections of the performance – home, travelling and arriving. I hope to give voice to many of Manchester’s residents that aren’t usually represented, or are often misrepresented, in public life.
Two performances of Making Manchester will take place on 27/28th June at Niamos Radical Arts Centre. Tickets for are £5 and available from Skiddle, Tickets For Good or on the door.