When lockdown closed the clubs, Amber Haslam kept playing. The sets moved online, and the time she spent livestreaming gave the DJ better known as Amber D a reason to go back into education. She enrolled on a music production degree at Leeds Conservatoire, then stayed for a master’s. She graduated this autumn with a distinction.
Haslam, 44, fitted both degrees around work and family. She credits an understanding husband and a knack for getting organised. In Leeds, she found that small classes made it easier to get to know the people she was studying with and to ask her tutors when something didn’t make sense.
“Music is something I absolutely love, so it never really felt like studying,” she told the conservatoire.
This November, Haslam is due to trek through Nepal’s Annapurna region as an ambassador for the music industry charity Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. The group is heading to Tilicho Lake, where the charity and its partner The Tribe are planning a full-moon party on 26 November. Haslam will support a back-to-back DJ set at the event.
The money raised will help complete a girls’ empowerment centre in Devchuli. The project provides education, counselling and vocational training for girls at risk of exploitation and abuse.
After Nepal comes a three-date Australian tour, with sets in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. There’s a place to hear her closer to home, too. On West Yorkshire’s LDC Radio, Haslam’s Hard Dance Show makes room for new records and emerging DJs alongside established names.
Header image: Amber Haslam, aka Amber D, at Leeds Conservatoire MA Graduation
