CULTURE · LIFESTYLE · PEOPLE
RAYE Sets Her Own Tempo With Audemars Piguet at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
In luxury watchmaking, music partnerships often risk feeling surface-level. With Audemars Piguet and RAYE, the connection feels more substantial because it is rooted in authorship, resilience, and the idea that time is something shaped through craft rather than simply measured.
THE PERFORMANCE
A one-off concert for the 60th edition of Montreux.
For the second year of their collaboration, Audemars Piguet and the British singer-songwriter are bringing that shared philosophy to the stage with a bespoke live performance created for the opening anniversary night of the Montreux Jazz Festival’s 60th edition.
The one-off concert, titled THIS STAGE MAY CONTAIN MOMENTS IN TIME, will unfold at the iconic Stravinski Auditorium, placing RAYE at the centre of one of the summer’s most culturally resonant luxury-music moments.
RAYE’S STORY
A journey that mirrors the values the brand wants to champion.
What gives this project its depth is the fact that RAYE’s own journey mirrors the values Audemars Piguet wants to champion. When her record label declined to release her debut album despite her early success, she chose to move forward on her own terms. That decision became a turning point rather than a setback.
A year later, she made history at the 2024 BRIT Awards, collecting six trophies including Artist, Album, and Song of the Year. She became both the most decorated artist in a single ceremony and the first woman to win Songwriter of the Year. In that context, the phrase “sets her own tempo” lands with real meaning. It is not branding language alone. It reflects the way RAYE has built her career.
THE CONCEPT
Time as something crafted, not measured.
Audemars Piguet leans into that idea directly. The collaboration is framed around a shared belief that time is crafted, not measured, shaped through passion, dedication, and resilience. It is a fitting concept for a watchmaker that has increasingly used culture, and music in particular, to communicate its human side.
RAYE’s collaborative instinct fits the brand’s APxMusic platform, which has long positioned music as a space for dialogue, experimentation, and collective expression. Supported by her close-knit family, she has built an artistic universe where conversation and connection sit at the centre.
THE WIDER STORY
APxMusic, and a bridge from “Suzanne” to Stravinski.
Audemars Piguet became Global Partner of the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2019 and launched APxMusic as a platform to support artists through projects that benefit their practice and development. Over the years, it has grown into a wider universe of original tracks, live performances, and bespoke creative encounters that sit comfortably between luxury, music, and contemporary culture.
Last year, in celebration of the manufacture’s 150th anniversary, RAYE and long-term friend of the brand Mark Ronson collaborated on the original track Suzanne, a release that blended the sounds of musical instruments with digital technology and reflected the values of heritage and family spirit. That project now feels like a bridge to this next chapter, where RAYE moves from studio collaboration to a major live statement on one of Europe’s most storied festival stages.
FOR BOUJEEZ
Luxury and music with real cultural credibility.
What makes this story resonate is the way it connects luxury to culture without flattening either one. Audemars Piguet is not simply borrowing relevance from a music star. It is aligning itself with an artist whose independence, conviction, and refusal to follow the crowd reflect the very values the brand wants to project.
In a market crowded with celebrity tie-ins that disappear as quickly as they arrive, this partnership feels more deliberate. RAYE’s performance at Montreux is being positioned not as a marketing accessory, but as a carefully shaped creative moment. That distinction matters. It places Audemars Piguet once again in the rare position of using music not as background, but as a serious expression of identity.