NI Music Prize Album Judges for 2020
Phil Nelson - Panel Chair
Phil will chair the discussion later this week just ahead of the awards. Thanks to Phil and all the judges for taking part.
Phil is an artist manager, music industry consultant, researcher, educator and lecturer. As an artist manager his clients have included The Levellers, The Longpigs, Matt Hales / Aqualung, Duke Special and Sweet Billy Pilgrim. He is former Vice Chair of the Music Managers’ Forum and Music Industry Ambassador at BIMM where he is still a lecturer. He is a co-founder of The Great Escape Festival and set up the Appetite for Disruption conference and The Education conference at The Great Escape Festival along with Chris Cooke of CMU.
Phil set up Pathways into Music with Chris Cooke, to research in detail the current state of Music Education and to provide a series of seminars for people who teach, advise and support early-career artists and future music industry talent, as well as the artists themselves. They are also mapping the Music Industry outside of London, region by region.
Corbyn Asbury - (Label Relations Manager, YouTube)
Corbyn joined YouTube at the start of 2018 to help with the launch of YouTube Music, and since has worked on large scale campaigns with superstar artists including Little Mix, The 1975, Dua Lipa, and Mabel, as well as leading on YouTube’s emerging artist programs inducing Artist on the Rise and YouTube Foundry. Corbyn has driven YouTube’s industry partnerships with The BRIT Awards, The Hyundai Mercury Prize, The Association of Independent Music, The Great Escape and more. Prior to YouTube, Corbyn spent time at Universal Music and Apple.
Steve Farris - Music Consultant
Steve has 30 years’ experience working in the music industry with over half that time spent in various roles in music publishing. Steve has worked with EMI, Sony/ATV, A7 Music – On The Fiddle Publishing, Polar Patrol, Spirit/B-Unique and 13 Artists Publishing. During his career Steve has signed and worked with many names including Belle and Sebastian, Nadine Shah, Kathryn Joseph, Declan O Rourke , Cut La Roc, Snow Patrol and many more. Many of the artists and writers he has worked with have won Brit Awards, Ivor Novello’s, BMI Awards, ASCAP awards, Scottish Album of the Year and have been nominated for Mercury’s and Grammys.
Olaf Furniss - Director of Wide Events and journalist (Scotland on Sunday)
Olaf Furniss is the founder and director of Wide Events, which hosts the award-winning Wide Days convention and showcase, the Born To Be Wide seminar/social evenings and Off The Record youth events. He started out as a journalist and has worked for titles including Billboard, Music Week, IQ, and The Guardian, as well as appearing on Radio Scotland and the World Service.
Since 2007 Olaf has been co-writing the Under The Radar column, which is published every week in Scotland and Sunday (and on The Scotsman website). Dedicated exclusively to emerging Scottish talent of all genres (from jazz to pop to black metal), it has been an early champion of acts including Young Fathers, Chvrches, Lewis Capaldi and Kathryn Joseph. Olaf is also founder of the Music Tourist consultancy, which he launched in 2016 to host the world’s first music tourism summit and has worked with a range of public agencies in both Europe and Australia.
Nikki MacRae - Programme Outreach Officer - Help Musicians Northern Ireland
After beginning her career through promoting gigs under the pseudonym ‘Hidden Machine’, alongside co-presenting / producing local music show ‘Through The Wall’ on Blast106, Nikki MacRae was delighted to support the launch of the first regional office of the 99-year-old independent charity Help Musicians in 2016. Since then, she has worked alongside a dedicated team to support local talent to thrive in their careers. In her role as Programme and Outreach officer, Nikki has counted highlights such as delivering the charity’s Women in Music fund to develop major works by local organisations to benefit female identifying and non-binary individuals in their careers and personal confidence, as well as curating a monthly informational public ‘expert series’ as part of the Three Bands in Three Years programme.
Ciara McEvoy - Member Specialist, PPL
Ciara is a Member Specialist at PPL, the UK’s music licensing company for performers and recording rights holders. She works with PPL members on every aspect of their membership to help them maximise their royalty revenue: joining PPL, making performer claims, registering recordings etc. With a background in teaching, Ciara regularly represents PPL at industry events and training sessions for performers, managers, labels and self-releasing performers. Ciara previously worked in live music, booking performances in the UK and Europe for a large roster of artists.
Rosin McNickle - Producer, BBC Radio Ulster, Across The Line Introducing
Roisin McNickle is an Assistant Producer on ATL Introducing, BBC Radio Ulster. After graduating from University of Ulster with a degree in Journalism and Marketing, she has worked across multiple media platforms, including print journalism, PR, digital and radio. Her happy place is definitely radio, specifically working within arts, music and events. In 2018 she joined the ATL team, supporting new Irish music and championing artists across all genres, working closely with the BBC Introducing team to ensure Irish music is reaching new listeners.
Ross Parkhill - Festival Director
Founder of Stendhal Festival (2011), visited Glastonbury 2003, aged 20, first proper concert and festival, caught the bug, wanted to bring something similar (Northern Irish scale) to Limavady and the Northwest. Stendhal is now an award winning event and in the last couple of years has also became historic as the largest ever gathering of tents in Northern Ireland. Longer term goals for Stendhal Festival are to remain as an independent festival and continue to provide more and more Northern Irish artists and audiences with a plethora of entertainment (and hopefully inspiration) to experience and enjoy - as well as booking RADIOHEAD to play Karma Police in Karma Valley (inspired by) someday.
Caroline Sewell - Regional Organiser, Musicians Union
Caroline Sewell was born and bred in Glasgow and developed an immense and eclectic passion for music from a young age - both to listen to and to perform. Graduating with a degree in Commercial Music at Paisley University (now University of the West of Scotland) she undertook a wide variety of work in the music industry in Scotland, working and getting involved at every possible music industry event and was also busy co- promoting a popular residency at the legendary Sub Club, Relentless, which ran successfully at the Subby for a number of years.
Caroline subsequently worked for Glasgow based company, No Half Measures (Wet Wet Wet, Hue and Cry, Red Sky July, The Hedrons, Cosmic Rough Riders) and in 2014, began working for the MU as the Regional Officer. She now resides as Regional Organiser for Scotland and Northern Ireland since 2016.
Sheridan Tongue
Belfast-born composer and producer Sheridan Tongue is internationally acclaimed for his incredible soundtracks for Silent Witness, Wonders of the Universe and most recently the BBC landmark documentary series Spotlight on the Troubles, for which he’s just received an RTS NI nomination for Best Original Music Score. Sheridan is also an artist and songwriter through his pseudonym IN-IS and has just released his second album 2068, which draws upon his wide range of musical experiences, from orchestral and electronic to folk-influenced global music.
He strives to achieve originality throughout his music, avoiding traditional composition techniques in favour of the more unusual, often creating unique sounds with his use of the unexpected instruments. Sheridan explored his love of sound recording and acoustics alongside orchestration, composition and conducting while studying at the University of Surrey Tonmeister course. His approach to composing is influenced by the early years of his career spent working as a producer, remixer, orchestrator and arranger with icons such as Robert Plant, Blur and Beverly Knight.
Jenny Wren - Festival Music Promoter, Body & Soul. Music Consultant.
Jenny has been the ‘music booker / programmer’ with Body & Soul. A discerning ear and self confessed music snob whom has helped knit the Body & Soul Projects together sonically for over 15yrs. From Body & Soul @ Electric Picnic, Solas @Latitude to the Jewel in the crown Body & Soul Festival which would have entered its 11th year in Summer ’20. Diverse, eclectic, inclusive, brave could be used to describe the music policy spanning all these years.
Jo Wright - Music officer, Arts Council Northern Ireland. Artist Manager
Jo Wright is a music development officer at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). Jo has been working at ACNI for the past 4 years and she has been working in the music sector across Ireland for the past 20 years. She started out as a session brass player and a recording and live sound engineer. Jo graduated from Queen’s University in 2004 with a BSc in Music Technology before moving into artist management, development and consultancy. Jo has previously worked with bands including Taste (Formerly Rory Gallagher’s Taste), Swanee River and Mental Deficiency, currently she continues to manage the artist Junior Johnson. She is a founding member of “Safe in Sound” an initiative set up to provide a safe space for underrepresented voices in the Northern Irish music sector.
