“What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message. Which means using everything you’ve got inside you sometimes to barely make a note, or if you to strain to sing – you sing.”
I am a freelance community musician and performer. My passion and work centers around the belief that music and the arts have the power to improve wellbeing, build strong communities, and shape socially inclusive and thriving societies.
I specialise in music-making with children, young people, and vulnerable groups - as well as backing vocals for a variety of musical groups. I grew up in Leith, Edinburgh, surrounded by musical friends and family and learning how music brings people together. After living in various countries around the world, I moved to London where she received a First in her Music in Development Masters at SOAS
I have worked internationally in Thailand, Uganda, Botswana, and most recently in Rajasthan and West Bengal, creating and facilitating children's music workshops for 6 months, as well as producing a musical performance exploring the relationship between the folk arts of West Bengal and Scotland - Robi & Rabbie.
Currently, I live back in Edinburgh and work for Love Music, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Phoenix Choir, SJCS, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Hear Me Out - as well as offering private singing lessons and running my own music projects (see Current Projects).
In the past, I’ve has worked for Oxfam, Music in Detention, SOAS World Music Summer School, Singing4Fun (Parkinsons UK), Fischy Music, Mita Pujara Evaluation, Creative Futures, PAN Arts, Crisis Homeless Charity, Earth in Common, Hartbeeps and MARSM.
I also create and facilitate my own music workshops around community wellbeing, protest music, and songwriting. These have been successfully received around the world including the RRAP hub (Rajasthan), Tagore Ashram (West Bengal) Goldsmiths University, AWOMENfest, and CARAS Refugee Centre (London)
As well as my community music projects, I am a performing vocalist and backing singer - this year having performed backing vocals for bands like Rory Butler, Brownbear, Niki King, Kat Brooks, MAM and more. I also have my own music projects with Midi Paul, PALLY, and Choral Stimulation.
Sally’s training include:
Agents of Change Mentorship Programme - Animate Consulting (2023)
Vocal Health First Aid Training - VHFA UK (2023)
Sing To Beat Parkinson's Training - with Prof. Grenville Hancox MBE (2021)
The Vocal Process - with Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher (2020)
Sound Production Introduction Course - Academy of Music and Sound (2020)
Snape Maltings MOT for Musicians Working in Challenging Circumstances (with Katherine Zeserson) - Snape Maltings (2020)
Community Music Practice: Reaching Out to Young People - Goldsmiths (2019)
Music In Development Masters - SOAS 2017
Bachelors in Music - Glasgow University 2014
“Music is not merely a ‘meaningful’ or ‘communicative’ medium… At the level of daily life, music has power. It is implicated in every dimension of social agency. Music may influence how people compose their bodies, how they conduct themselves, how they experience the passage of time, how they feel – in terms of energy and emotion – about themselves, about others, and about situations.”