Biography

Ruby is a Violinist, Composer & Sound Artist. Her work traverses genres from Classical, to folk, Sound Art & Audio Visual installation. Her instrumentation is far beyond the realm of traditional playing, weaving in environmental sound & electronics, Ruby’s music is eclectic but strangely unique and her performances charged with emotional power and nuance.

Her interests have developed into building a relationship between the audible world and her creative practice. Focusing on overlooked elements of nature & humanity, feeding it into her performance, composition & audio-visual work.

Ruby’s latest work ‘Hello Halo’ with Exaudi Ensemble, has been developed alongside Ruby’s brother, Paul Colley, who is neurodivergent & is non-speaking.
Despite being termed "non-verbal," Paul uses a rich repertoire of sounds & gestures. The composition transcribes these communication methods, using live voice and recordings of Paul, to make a vocal map of his life & relationships.

Her album ‘Overheard’, 2022 draws upon field recordings and weaves in instrumentation & electronics. The album seeks to unravel the connections between human presence & nature in response to the climate crisis.

Her EP ‘Underheard’ 2023, continues the Human experience of the climate catastrophe, along with memory, loss and our place within nature itself.

Ruby’s film & directorial debut, ‘The Sea Wrote It’ was shown at the Manchester Lift Off Film Festival as well as the Altpitch festival & won their artist commission award. Her audio-visual work, Edgeland, was shown at the Alt PItch festival in 2021 & installed at the 1st Sono Electro festival, Electro Studios in 2023.

She has written for Film, and collaborated with Theatre and Dance, and played with acts such as Sam Lee, Owen Pallette, The Unthanks, Cosmo Sheldrake, Zoe Keating and the late Sinead O’Connor & John Martyn. She was artist in residence for the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast, (2008) and also realeased the EP ‘Sussex Sessions’ with the esteemed Isobel Anderson in 2014. Her film collaboration with Dance United was accepted into the Fastnet Film Festival and Encounters Film Festival. Ruby’s track The Wait, used for the film “We all have a tree in us” by Turner nominated Project Artworks. It was scheduled to be shown at the British Film Institute (BFI) on 21 April 2020.