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.
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 Gives the Collaboration Its Weight
What gives this project its depth is the fact that RAYE’s own journey mirrors the values Audemars Piguet wants to champion. The release frames her artistic path as one shaped by perseverance and personal conviction, noting that 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, while becoming 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.
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.
The release also highlights RAYE’s collaborative instinct, describing how she embraces exchange, trust, and community as part of her creative process. Supported by her close-knit family, she has built an artistic universe where conversation and connection sit at the centre. That makes her a particularly natural fit for the brand’s APxMusic platform, which has long positioned music as a space for dialogue, experimentation, and collective expression.
A Defining Performance for the 60th Edition of Montreux
This year’s show is presented as a landmark in RAYE’s journey, articulating years of dedication and perseverance in a defining live moment. Returning to the festival as opening performer, she steps into a chapter she has shaped from the inside out. The concert has been designed not simply as another festival slot, but as a fully conceived performance that explores sound, image, and storytelling while remaining true to her independent voice.
Held in the Stravinski Auditorium, a venue renowned for its acoustics, the performance promises a timeless journey celebrating self-expression through music. The release notes that musical legends will be woven into the narrative of the concert, paying tribute to six decades of Montreux history while reinforcing the collaborative spirit at the heart of the evening.
The Wider APxMusic Story
This collaboration also sits within a broader cultural strategy. 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, that 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.
Luxury and Music With Real Cultural Credibility
For Boujeez, 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 gives the collaboration substance, and it places Audemars Piguet once again in the rare position of using music not as background, but as a serious expression of identity.
Discover more:
APxMusic |
Montreux Jazz Festival |
RAYE Official