RUBY COLLEY

Ruby Colley is a violinist, composer, and sound artist whose work traverses genres & mediums—from classical and folk to audiovisual installation. Her instrumentation reaches beyond the realm of traditional playing, weaving electronics and field recordings, resulting in performances that are eclectic, distinctive, and charged with emotional nuance.

At the heart of Ruby’s practice is a deep engagement with oft-overlooked details and a fascination with how everyday sounds and intimate experiences can reveal larger meanings about our place in the world. Her most recent work, Hello Halo (with Exaudi Ensemble), focuses on communication and connection, transforming her nonverbal brother Paul’s sounds and gestures into a vocal map of Paul’s life and relationships—through live voice, violin and fixed media.

That same innovative approach shapes her earlier projects, including the 2022 album Overheard, which blends field recordings with instrumental and electronic textures to invite listeners to reflect on human structure and its impact on the environment, particularly in the context of the climate crisis. Her follow-up EP Underheard, a continuation of these themes, includes a piece inspired by her daughter’s encounter with a trapped bee, turning a fleeting moment into a meditation on human intervention in nature.

Ruby’s boundary-pushing work has reached audiences across film, festivals, and collaborative projects. Her film and directorial debut, The Sea Wrote It, was shown at the Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival and featured at the Altpitch Festival, where it won the Artist Commission Award. Her audiovisual piece Edgeland appeared at AltPitch in 2021 and was installed at the inaugural Sono Electro Festival at Electro Studios in 2023.

She has composed for film, collaborated with theatre and dance companies, and contributed music to projects featured at the Fastnet and Encounters Film Festivals. Her track “The Wait” was used in the film "We All Have a Tree in Us” by Turner- nominated Project Art Works, which was shown at the British Film Institute in April 2020.

As a performer and collaborator, Ruby has worked with a diverse array of artists, including Sinéad O’Connor, John Martyn, Sam Lee, Owen Pallett, The Unthanks, Cosmo Sheldrake, and Zoe Keating. She was artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in Belfast (2008), and released the EP Sussex Sessions with Isobel Anderson in 2014.

Across her work, Ruby invites us to listen more closely—revealing how the smallest detail can reflect larger stories about humanity and our environment. Her music doesn’t just comment on the world; it asks us to listen differently and consider our own place within it.

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