Sound of Belfast festival returns with diverse music events as it marks 10-year anniversary

Chief executive of the Oh Yeah Music Centre Charlotte Dryden, who helps curate the programme, hopes the extravaganza will inspire Northern Ireland’s next generation of talent from across the community.

She said the Sound of Belfast is the perfect place to highlight the music and art being created by diverse communities.

“There are brilliant arts organisations and artists out there that are from the disabled community and neurodivergent musicians, so we’ve teamed up with the University of Atypical who represent artists with disabilities and we’re doing an event with them,” explained Charlotte.

“Show Some Love are also running a night which is dedicated to rising queer artists in the city and are putting that out there as an event in their Greenhouse, which is in the city centre here.

“When you talk about diversity, you talk about all the different types of music.”

This year will see Sound of Belfast 2024 celebrate its status as a UNESCO City of Music by hosting the UK-wide PRS Foundation Talent Development conference for the first time, which is another coup for the planners.

“The festival runs for 10 days, but there are three days back to back that will make this the biggest showcase and discussion around music that Belfast has ever seen, because there’s a conference coming here from one of the funders,” said Charlotte.

“The PRS Foundation are bringing their Talent Development conference to the city and that’s bringing 73 organisations that all work in music and talent development together from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to talk about talent and talk about the development of artists.

“But also, those organisations will be shown the great talent that we’ve got here. So there will be opportunities to collaborate and for artists to talk to people about getting tours in England and maybe collaborating with somebody in Wales, for example.

“They’ll be here and be able to take in the Output conference which is the following day and then there’s also the Northern Ireland Music Prize, which is the big celebration of music that’s come out of the North over the past year.

“So it’s a really good mix and I think the thing that makes Sound of Belfast stand out is we are very much dedicated to the talent that’s based here in the city, and turning the spotlight up on them and making sure that they have as much of a platform as an international artist coming in, which is amazing, but we’re kind of saying we’ve got a world class music scene right here in the city, so let’s celebrate that.

“So it’s that elevation of what’s existing in the city and platforming a city that’s changed as well, that is more diverse and it is more inclusive and welcoming and richer for it.”

The flagship event of Sound of Belfast is the NI Music Prize on Wednesday, November 13, at the Ulster Hall, with an Oh Yeah Legend Award presented by PRS For Music to Thin Lizzy’s founding member Eric Bell, followed by a special performance.

Sound of Belfast runs from November 7 to 17, are available via www.soundofbelfast.com

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