Artist CampusWith Amyra Leon
Talks > Artist Campus > Amyra LeonIn the second of our Artist Campus series, we were joined by musician, playwright, author & activist, Amyra Leon.
ABOUT THE SESSION.
In conversation with MAIA Partnerships Lead Aliyah Hasinah, all were left feeling incredibly full as Amyra shared poignant insights from her artistic journey to help inspire our own.
“The answer is in the exhale”
- Amyra Leon
SESSION INSIGHTS.
Take yourself seriously.
Your sadness is not a thing to rush.
Answer your own questions before you ask someone else for answers.
It isn’t just when the sun rises that things get to be new.
Creative Documentation.
“I didn't ask to be an artist, I was called to be one. If I'd have waited to be ready, I would have never known what I was ready for.”
- Amyra Leon
About the Artist
AMYRA is a musician, playwright, author and activist. Her work fuses music and poetry through powerfully transparent performances focusing on social inequalities and communal healing whilst celebrating love, blackness, and womanhood.
She has performed throughout the United States and Europe collaborating with the likes of The Apollo, BAM, BBC, Roundhouse, Amnesty International and more. Amyra composed Una Mujer Derramada in collaboration with Sivan Eldar commissioned by and performed with Lisbon's Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Montpellier National Opera, and the Paris Chamber Orchestra.
She is the inaugural recipient of the Battersea Arts Centre Phoenix Award which led to the 2019 London premiere of her debut play VASELINE.
She is the author of Concrete Kids (Penguin 2020), Freedom We Sing (Flying Eye Books 2020) and Darling (Walker, Candlewick 2022). Her musical debut, Something Melancholy, led to sharing stages with Common, Robert Glasper, Nikki Giovanni and more. Amyra’s first full length album, WITNESS, is set to release summer 2020.
Preorder: ‘Concrete Kids & Freedom, We Sing! ' (Oct 2020) 
About the Series
Talks > Artist Campus > Amyra Leon
Artist Campus
In our Artist Campus series, artists from across the world share big ideas and reflections on matters of interest to their practice: