Calling all songwriters! As part of our two-day free festival Amplify, we’ll be joined by hit songwriter Fiona Bevan and The Ivors Academy and Apple Music 2021 Rising Star nominees Rachel Chinouriri and Allegra. Hosted by the Ivors Academy, the trio will take centre stage in Studio One as they present Talking Songwriting. For your chance to be in the room on 12 November for this panel, enter the ballot by 29 October!

If versatility is the key to modern musical success, then Rachel Chinouriri is already well on her way. Nominated for the Rising Star Award with Apple Music 2021, the singer-songwriter hails from Croydon, is of Zimbabwean heritage and has already seen her emotionally complex anthems find favour with everyone from Michaela Cole to Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The sound that launched a million syncs, Chinouriri’s debut EP, Four Degrees In Winter, already has over 2.5 million streams and showcases a writer with a song for every occasion. Expect all-round superstardom to follow.

Fiona Bevan is a hit songwriter, achieving a number 1 album with Kylie Minogue and penning hit songs with Lewis Capaldi, Matthew E. White and Natalie Prass, Ed Sheeran, Tom Walker, Steps, Aurora, Dan from Bastille and many more. Her collaboration with Ed Sheeran, Little Things – became a number 1 hit in 13 countries for One Direction. Fiona is currently writing with Nile Rodgers, Rationale, Troy Miller, and Mr Hudson, and working with new artists including Joy Crookes, Zak Abel, Ewan Mainwood, Tom King and Tamzene amongst others.

Fiona was a judge and mentor for the Rising Star nominee Rachel Chinouriri for this year’s Ivor Novello Awards with Apple Music. She also represents songwriters on the Ivors Songwriter Committee and the PRS Members’ Council.

During the recent DCMS Investigation into streaming Fiona gave evidence and has since spoken out for songwriters with outlets including the BBC, C4 News, ITV news, The Guardian, The Times.
Fiona was recently asked by Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA to join him as an ambassador for his new initiative Credits Due, which is a pledge by the music industry to ensure that complete and accurate song metadata is attached to all recordings at the point of creation.

Alongside her writing career, Fiona is also a prolific artist and has just finished writing and self-producing her new EP, co-mixed with Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, BLOXX, Sophie and The Giants).
Her previous release, Wild Angels Sweet Demons, was produced by Grammy award-winning engineer Robin Baynton (Mumford And Sons, Laura Marling, Isaac Gracie), released independently, and went straight to number 2 in France, and number 7 in both the UK and Canada iTunes singer-songwriter charts.

Fiona has toured with Ed Sheeran, Nick Mulvey, Adam Ant, Ruston Kelly and The Wandering Hearts, after they met onstage playing at The Bluebird in Nashville.

As her social media points out, Allegra means ‘lively’ in Italian. And the soulful singer-songwriter’s ascent has certainly been a hectic one, involving everything from cutting her first demo at 13, to walking away from it all to volunteer at a Buddhist retreat centre. But that life experience has certainly paid off: an accomplished co-writer, she has now released two gorgeous songs as solo singles, Spectacles and Excuse Me, is working on her debut EP and was nominated for the Rising Star Award with Apple Music 2021. Expect it to be a lively one, in anyone’s language.