Graduation Tales | Songwriter Stacy soars into music industry

This week, the International Convention Centre Wales in Newport will once again see thousands of our graduates cross the stage in their cap and gown. To celebrate, we are sharing the stories of some of our inspirational students.

Anastassia Svets, known as Stacy, is graduating from USW with a first-class honours BA in Popular and Commercial Music.

Originally from Estonia, Stacy is a self-taught electronic music producer, songwriter and digital artist, and is currently part of the Forte Project – an Arts Council of Wales funded development programme that supports young music creators in Wales. As part of this, she made her live debut performing at Focus Wales, a multi-venue festival based in Wrexham which showcases emerging talent in the music industry.

Stacy first came to the UK after finishing high school, having wanted to study abroad for as long as she can remember. During a gap year, she was inspired by some former classmates who had come to Wales to study.

“I looked into universities here and decided that USW would be the best choice for me,” said Stacy. “It had the courses and curriculum I was most interested in. Back home, there isn’t much choice for higher education in Music.

“Studying at USW has really helped prepare me for the industry. Besides inspiring to practise self-discipline and time management – both of which are very important for an artist – the course provided a wide variety of industry knowledge.

“Creative modules helped me keep up on my productivity and gave me motivation to keep writing music and experimenting with sound. Research modules helped me gather knowledge in topics I've never considered before.”

During her final year at USW, Stacy was also the manager for USW’s Immersed! Festival, which this year joined forces with the iconic BBC Radio 6 Music as a fringe event for its first music festival in Cardiff.

As a fan of a wide range of music, Stacy is inspired by artists such as Bjork, Imogen Heap, Kate Bush and Lingua Ignota. She said: “I'm a firm believer in treating music as a texture and concept besides mere entertainment, so I'm always trying to broaden my musical horizons. I'm extremely fond of classical and folk music of different cultures, especially Indian and Middle Eastern music. Lately I've been enjoying extreme music like death industrial and power electronics, and some days I listen to a lot of hip-hop and club music.”

Alongside working at Porter’s, a live music and entertainment bar in Cardiff, Stacy freelances as a sound engineer, and plans to continue her career as a solo artist and producer in the city.

Her music is streaming on Spotify, Soundcloud and Bandcamp as Sorry Stacy, as well as Instagram @sorry__stacy and Twitter @sorry_stacy. Her new EP, inspired by her final year project, will be released in August.

She added: “I can’t thank USW enough for all the opportunities it has given me. I took all I could out of my course and enjoyed it massively!”