A never-ending reinvention of Self: The Artist's bio.

In the last year and a half I have written three artist biographies. Three times I have felt the need to rewrite the professional explaination of my chaos. Each time I rewrite it I feel completely evolved from the previous author so I thought I would archive each of these versions of myself for the purpose of both articulating each stage of my professional self and demonstrating the constant reworking of positionality and purpose that we all experience as artists. So here is my archive: from most recent to most distant.

MARCH 2026

Hannah Whiteway is an actor-musician currently based between London and Bedfordshire. She is in the process of graduating from an MA in actor musicianship from Rose Bruford College with distinction. As a musician her strongest and most constant instrument is the piano. This is where she writes her music and is most consistently inspired after quitting her classical grades to pursue writing and learning by ear. Hannah also plays the guitar, the bass guitar, the accordion and the cello. Her writing of both music and theatre, short stories and poetry is rooted in her research regarding punk politics, magic realism and the embodiment of 'wildness' pursued through natural imagery and chiasmic wildness. As a result of this her work is chaotic, messy and WILD. Hannah's work as a musician dangerously balances a fascination with the punk vocalist and a love of an electric guitar's war cry and a bass guitar's ominous marching with the swirling sounds of folk vocal work. These obsessions often clash in the strangest and most interesting ways (she thinks anyway). This currently surfaces in her most recent work 'HOWL'. A research based concept album written about how to become WILD that she is developing into a piece of gig theatre which she will perform in May 2026. 

 FEBRUARY 2025

Hannah Whiteway is an actor-musician currently based in London and Bedford. She is about to graduate from the MA in Actor Musicianship at Rose Bruford College with a distinction. As a musician, she is a multi-instrumentalist. Her main instrument is the piano (this is the one she's been messing with for the longest) but she also plays: guitar, bass guitar, cello and accordion. Creatively, she loves to make work that is chaotic, messy, often rude and loud and this follows into all aspects of her work. Currently, Hannah is researching British punk music and culture, the concept of 'wildness' and the embodiment of it . This is all working towards a project involving writing and performing punk music which empowers and uplifts people (particularly women) to recognise their own physical strength and engage "the Fighting Spirit" whilst creating a fanzine to support the content of the songs. Hannah is constantly battling an obsession with punk with a genuine love of Celtic folk music and is aware that she will eventually have to choose one for the sake of her vocal health. She is a folk singer and song-writer. Her most recent project in this involved a collaboration with the Primary Shakespeare Company where she worked collaboratively to write the script and the music for an actor-musician production of Hamlet which she toured around London schools, performing for over 1000 students from year two to year five. This project sparked a real passion for sharing music and storytelling with children and young people. This love of folk music is grounded in her spirituality and appreciation of nature which influences every aspect of her work. She believes in embracing wildness and wilderness and she is currently exploring this concept by creating wild artwork and imagery which supports all other work. She considers herself an oral musician, so please don't ask her to read sheet music unless you want it read wrong. Her music (like herself) is joyful, experimental, excitable and loud!

OCTOBER 2024

Hannah Whiteway is an actress and a musician. She is based in London and has no fucking clue what she’s doing. She’s never written an artist's biography before and honestly she has no idea what to say. And no idea if the grammar she uses is correct. She also has no credits, no awards, no affiliations and no clue who she is as an artist. So, that’s fun. She must be immature because she keeps being cast as children (FYI it’s bloody brilliant not being an adult). She is currently studying at Rose Bruford College doing an MA in Actor musicianship, so cool right? As you might have guessed she’s also positive to the point of annoyance. Her professional debut was when she performed in a production of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat at the Royal Derngate Theatre. She also sang chorally and played multiple instruments with the Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra. Her main instrument is the piano; but to be clear she is NOT a classical pianist. She will not read sheet music no matter how persuasive you might be. She was a finalist for young musician of the year where she played her piano and sang for a panel. She is obsessed with rock music and is absolutely determined to be a hot drummer (it will happen). Arguably, her best music is made in the pub, her Irish ancestors would be proud. Her last attempt at theatrical professionalism involved a drag act, a fake moustache and a hot pink bra, and honestly I can’t say that this attempt is going any better. Back to the point, her music is loud, often wrong but usually joyful (or furious you never know which one you’ll get). She’s also a singer and is very impressed with herself over her recent attempts at Irish folk music. Finally, her alarmingly long commute from north London to Sidcup causes her to lose her mind on a daily basis which is great for creativity. She swore she would use the journeys to work but does she? Does she fuck.