Songs Beyond Sound – Dr Ailie Robertson
Lecturer in Composition and Traditional Music

Ailie Robertson is a multi-award-winning composer and harpist. She has been commissioned by some of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions, including the BBC Proms, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble, and the RSNO.

The Seed Fund will support Ailie to undertake early R&D and partnership building for an innovative project that fuses co-created lyrics by d/Deaf teenagers with choral music and BSL performance to explore new forms of inclusive musical expression.

Ailie said: “I am delighted to receive Innovation Studio funding for my project Songs Beyond Sound. It will include creative workshops with d/Deaf young people, research into best practice in inclusive and accessible composition, and the development of a creative framework that genuinely supports Deaf-led expression.”

Fish by Moonlight – Francesca Hess
Audience Operations

Writer and actor Francesca Hess will collaborate with medical professionals, using role-play, to develop a new piece of theatre about post-partum psychosis.

Francesca trained as an actor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (BA Acting, 2022), where she was the recipient of the Phil McCall Prize for Acting.

Francesca is also the co-founder and producer of I’ll Scratch Yours, an event showcasing new writing and performance in Glasgow (@illscratchyours_).

Francesca said: “The fund will allow me to take the first steps in developing Fish by Moonlight, an urgent new piece of theatre about post-partum psychosis.

“l will collaborate with a team of doctors and theatre makers to examine and explore different types of post-partum illnesses, using role-play and case studies.

“This represents an exciting collaboration between artists and medical professionals, a unique fusion of theatrical techniques and psychiatrist knowledge.”

Regina Caeli – Gary Gardiner
Lecturer in Social Practice

Gary Gardiner is co-Artistic Director of 21Common, an award-winning, interdisciplinary arts collective based in Glasgow.

Their shows Dancer, The Ballad of the Apathetic Son and His Narcissistic Mother, and IN THE INTEREST OF HEALTH AND SAFETY CAN PATRONS KINDLY SUPERVISE THEIR CHILDREN AT ALL TIMES have toured across the UK and internationally.

With support from the Seed Fund and other funding partners, they are developing Regina Caeli, a new performance exploring choreography borne from dependency, grief and rage, framed via an apoplectic sermon and one-sided eulogy where the dead have no right to reply.

Gary said: “We are delighted to receive this award which will contribute significantly to our new work Regina Caeli and provide us with a unique opportunity to embrace new approaches with sound and visuals not just seen and heard but felt and lived.”

Enter the Rainbow – Hayley Earlam
MEd Learning and Teaching in the Arts

Hayley Earlam is an award-winning dance artist based in Glasgow, working across performance, facilitation and creation. Her interests lie within the body’s drive to move and our need to connect with others.

As a choreographer, Hayley creates sensory-based theatre for the most extraordinary audiences, including babies, early years, and disabled audiences with complex needs.

She will use the award for an early-stage research project that explores putting the audience at the heart of the performance through intensive interactions, creative consultation, and cultivating joy and curiosity.

Hayley said: “I am beyond excited to receive this funding to begin a new collaboration with dance artist Jade Adamson.

“We will work towards the creation of a new sensory theatre show for young audiences with complex needs. The research will support us to include the audience in the earliest stage of research, allowing the audience to inform and shape the creative process.”

Carrot Cake – Pablo López Sánchez-Matas
MA Acting Classical and Contemporary Text

Pablo López Sánchez-Matas began his training in the Spanish theatre scene at a very young age, cultivating a strong foundation in comedy, physical theatre, and improvisation.

Now pursuing an MA in Acting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, he is committed to deepening his craft within such an international and artistically rigorous environment.

The Seed Fund will support Pablo to develop Carrot Cake, a celebration of life and death rooted in the exploration of human connection and the body as organic and decaying matter, portrayed through the gradual and slow transformation of its main character into a carrot.

Pablo said: “I’m very grateful for receiving the Innovation Studio funding. As an emerging Spanish artist and recent graduate in the UK, I feel this opportunity will allow me to further materialise my practice through Carrot Cake, a project I feel will prove a great stride in my career and a clear path into the creative industry.”

Nesting – Peter McCormick
Short Courses

Peter McCormick is an Irish writer and actor based in Glasgow. He trained at RCS (BA Acting, 2023) after completing a degree at Trinity College Dublin.

His debut play, Beyond Krapp, ran at the Pleasance during the Edinburgh Fringe and was a Sunday Times pick for ‘Best Theatre at the Festival 2024’.

His artistic collaboration with Ben Standish has been supported by Vanishing Point, and he is currently developing a comedy drama for television as both writer and performer with Create Anything.

Peter is awarded Innovation Studio funding for Nesting, a multi-disciplinary deep dive into assisted dying, personal autonomy, and caregiving.

Peter said: “The Innovation Fund will ensure that Nesting is not made on a laptop in a library. It will be drafted by patients and performers, choreographers and carers, artists and advocates.

“Our innovation is to create a show from the inside out: where form and content evolve in response to lived experience of MND and assisted death.”

The Cosmic Joke Collection – Peter McMahon
Domestic Services

Musician and composer Peter McMahon will use the Seed Award to work on The Cosmic Joke Collection, an album exploring the pains and joys of queer love through the juxtaposition of many different genres and instrumentations.

With a potent mix of folk, classical, and musical-theatre sensibilities, Peter’s music tends towards honest lyrics, evocative melodies and lush harmonies, with a generous helping of live performance and comedy thrown in for good measure.

Peter said: “I am incredibly grateful to the team behind the Innovation Studio, as this funding will allow the necessary time and space to bring my many ideas for this ambitious album crashing into reality.

“I cannot wait to see what I learn over the course of these next few months while creating it with my wonderful collaborators, and I hope it brings some powerful joy and magic into the world.”

New Soundworlds for the Extended Voice – Riley Mackenzie
BMus Composition

Riley Erin Flora Mackenzie is a queer/transfeminine experimental composer and musician whose work spans forms from notated acoustic compositions to live electronic improvisation, and which seeks sensations of embodied viscerality and hallucinogenic unreality.

Also active as a writer, she was formerly a regular contributor to the blog Mutant Breakfast and a writer and member of the editorial team of Pandora Magazine.

The Seed Fund will allow Riley and collaborator Eilidh Bisset (soprano) to conduct practical research and development for a series of new works for voice and electronics.

Riley said: “This funding from the Innovation Studio gives us the freedom to explore our most ambitious and experimental creative impulses, as well as provides vital financial support for early-career musicians and creatives such as ourselves.”

Dearest – Simone Seales
Lecturer in Interdisciplinary and Extended Practice

Glasgow-based cellist and performance artist Simone Seales receives follow-on funding to explore new techniques to create the album artwork and moving image visuals for their debut poetry-music album Dearest.

Last year, they received the £1,000 award to support the initial R&D phase of the project. Simone’s practice focuses on free improvisation, live looping, poetry, and devising music for theatre. Through their collaborative and creative process, they prioritise play, silliness and connection.

Simone said: “I’m incredibly grateful to receive the Innovation Studio Seed Fund. This support will enable me to work with artists Christian Noelle Charles and David Stanley to make artwork and a strong visual concept for my upcoming poetry-music album, Dearest.

“Without this funding, I would not be able to contract and collaborate with these incredible artists.”

There are no words – Dr Sonia Allori
Doctoral Student (PhD)

Sonia Allori is a Scottish/Italian composer, performer, researcher and music therapist. Her PhD in composition explored the intersection of music, text, and gender, and her practice combines words and music at its core, emphasising inclusion and an insatiable curiosity for all things.

She is a multi-instrumentalist who occasionally sings. Her work is often inspired by nature and an appreciation of humour in everyday life.

Sonia is a performer/composer with experimental ensemble Sonic Bothy and is researching D/deaf performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Sonia said: “Being awarded the Innovation Studio Funding will allow me to move my practice in a new direction.

“I’ll be collaborating with other artists to create a new work-in-progress, There are no words, which will explore the intersection between music, dance and BSL.”

Sòlás Collective – Tom Macfadyen
MMus Composition

Sòlás Collective is the experimental trio of Fionnlagh Mac A’Phiocair, Sarah Hanniffy and Tom Macfadyen. They combine bagpipes, viola, voice and real-time electronic signal processing to create ambient soundscapes with inflections of Scottish and Irish traditional music, folklore, oral history, natural landscapes and Gàidhlig song.

The Seed Fund will empower the trio to develop and perform a set of new works as part of their ongoing collaboration.

Tom said: “We are delighted to be receiving support from the Innovation Studio to develop Sòlás Collective – an unconventional cross-genre trio fusing Scottish and Irish traditional music with experimental electronics.

“This award will grant us the opportunity to devise, develop and present a new collection of semi-improvised works for a blended audience interested in both traditional and contemporary music.”

Children and Youth Opera in Castlemilk – Tyler Zwink
MMus Composition

Tyler Zwink is an American composer living in Glasgow. He has earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma and his Masters in Music Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he was selected as the woodwind department’s 2025 composer in residence.

Zwink’s music has been performed in Spain, Mexico, Scotland, and across the United States. The funding will enable Tyler to embed previous research and experience in producing children’s opera within his local community.

Tyler said: “I am honoured to be awarded funding by the Innovation Studio. With the Seed Fund, I will be able to take the research data I have collected previously and use it in a hands-on approach to positively impact my local community of Castlemilk.

“The funding also allows me to work with high-level facilitating artists, bringing them to Castlemilk to expose the children of Castlemilk to the medium of opera.”

Do you have an innovative idea and are looking for support? The next Seed Fund round opens on 1st October 2025.

Apply for up to £1,000 to explore an early-stage idea, or up to £4,000 to further shape an existing project!

Following the successful two-year pilot (2022-24), Innovation Studio has published a report that showcases people, projects, and initiatives it supported during this phase.

Download the full report here or head over to the website to explore the latest case studies.

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