Listen Up! Learnings from our two week residency with City Lit
In May 2026, Listen Up! invited people to experience listening not as a passive act, but as a powerful, inclusive way of relating to sound, to one another, and to the world. What emerged was a powerful insight: people weren't looking to be taught about listening. They were looking for opportunities to explore it for themselves.
The impact of Listen Up!
The residency brought together audiences, artists, educators, cultural leaders and partners to explore listening from multiple perspectives.
We asked attendees what they took away from the experience. Their responses revealed the impact that dedicated spaces for listening can have.
93%
rated the experience 5/5.
100%
experienced listening in a new way
“Inspiring” “Uplifting” “Monumental”
Just some of the words people used to describe their Listen Up! experience.
The In‑the‑Round Experience
Led by Dame Evelyn Glennie and featuring musicians from City Lit’s Percussion Orchestra, this immersive event placed listening at the centre of the room, literally.
As one of the most powerful elements of the residency, the In-the-Round demonstrated how listening can become a collective act. Through sound, conversation and creative participation, attendees were invited not simply to observe, but to explore listening for themselves.
Rather than being taught about listening, participants were given the space to experience it. The format encouraged reflection, creativity and connection, creating some of the residency’s most meaningful and memorable moments and reinforcing a key learning from Listen Up!: people are hungry for spaces that help them develop their own listening practice.
The exhibition
The Listen Up! exhibition brought together artefacts from The Evelyn Glennie Collection and global contributions from Ways of Listening, our creative partnership with Cities and Memory. Through objects, sound, stories and tactile prompts, the exhibition invites visitors to slow down, shift perspective and experience listening as something felt through the whole body.
Featured in the exhibition
Trongos
To listen to the Trongos is to engage with sound in motion. As the instrument is set gently in motion, water travels within its metal chambers, subtly reshaping tone and resonance.
The Glennie Concert Aluphone
An instrument born from an unexpected encounter between a Danish percussion company and a manufacturer of garden post‑top protectors. Evelyn played a central role in shaping the Aluphone’s sound and development, leading to its global debut at the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.
Musical scores
Caliban’s Dream by Underworld, was written for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Evelyn was asked to seek out a hopeful, fresh, resonant sound that could embody a new generation of athletes emerging onto the world stage.
Sandman’s Castle for solo Tam-Tam by Vincent Ho was written for Evelyn Glennie in 2015 as part of her 50 for 50 project.
Ways of Listening
Selected creative responses from our global project with Cities and Memory were displayed at the exhibition, offering diverse, global perspectives on how listening is experienced, practised and understood, and highlighting the many different pathways people use to engage with the world around them.
