Wednesday 3 March 2021, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Simon Holt is a composer whose music demands unusual commitment from his interpreters – his intricate sound-worlds often comprise complex, rich textures, offset by ‘still centres’ – for the purpose of making music which speaks with extraordinary power. He was born in Bolton, Lancashire on 21 February, […]
Leo Chadburn talks about his work from the last decade: music that is concerned with the musicality and theatricality of the speaking voice, found text, lists and stream-of-consciousness writing. He has drawn upon models borrowed from visual art, such as the installation work of Susan Hiller and the films of John Smith and Peter Greenaway, […]
BSAD have sound artist and Bath Spa graduate Kathy Hinde visiting on Monday 22 February at 5pm, and the session is open to everyone. To join, use this link: https://meet.google.com/rpv-aaes-yqw Kathy will share her current research as a Data fellow with South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN).She has been researching methods to experience water “data sets” […]
Wednesday 17 February 2021, 12-2pm, online via Minerva. Exploring the ready-made scores through speculative listening to create sound compositions that demands other listening spaces. A Kurdish composer, improviser and sound artist, Hardi Kurda began his music education at the Institute of Fine Art, Slemani (violin). He obtained his BA (2009) and MA (2012) degrees in […]
Wednesday 26 January, 12-2pm (online via Minerva) Lim’s Sex Magic was premiered by American flutist Claire Chase on Dec 18 2020 and livestreamed from The Kitchen in New York. It is a 50-minute work for contrabass flute, electronics and an installation of kinetic percussion, about the sacred erotic in women’s history. Please see links for […]
Wednesday 20 January 2021, 12-2pm [Online via Minerva] Tom Johnson discusses his latest mathematical music, not with 12-tone rows, but with (12,4,3) block designs. The 12 notes all have equal importance, but there is no octave equivalence and the rules are quite a bit more rigorous than in the Second Viennese School. Tom Johnson, born […]
Wednesday 13 January [online via Minerva] Jock McKenzie is leading composer of educational music, specialising particularly in brass and wind. In this short presentation, Jock will talk about his approach to writing educational brass music (from beginner to diploma level), with a special emphasis on the new and different formats and resources necessitated by the […]
Wednesday 6 January, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] For a long time I considered my work to be about the relationship between sound, history and memory, using recorded spoken word and field recordings as my primary materials. However over the last decade or so, I realise that my recent work is all about stories – the […]
Wednesday 9 December, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] In this presentation, Australian composer and performer Cat Hope talks about her animated notation practice and how it is used to facilitate the inclusion of electronics in a series of small and large scale works. Originally engaged to enable a focus on very low sound, glissandi and long […]
In this talk I will present resent research that explores how contemporary music technologies trace their ancestry to previous forms of instruments and media. I will look at how new digital music technologies have origins in traditional instrument design, musical notation, and sound recording. The scope will range from ancient Greek music theory, medieval notation, early […]
Wednesday 25 November 2020, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Anna will be chatting through some of the range of projects she’s worked on in recent years including opening up her work beyond commissioned acoustic/orchestral etc work to include writing albums and performing with her band, writing for film and tv and installation work. She’ll also talk […]
Wednesday 18 November 2020, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Some of my music includingsome general thoughts about:Instruments as objectsandObjects as instrumentsAbout composing pitches versus composing sound complexes, composing video, composing light, composing performance. Michael Maierhof is a composer based in Hamburg. He studied mathematics and music in Kassel and art history and philosophy in Hamburg. He […]
Wednesday 11 November, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Aaron Cassidy will discuss two recent quartets based on the work of the painter Gerhard Richter—Self-Portrait, Three Times, Standing (15.3.1991–20.3.1991) (2018–19) and Self-Portrait, 1996 (2020)—that together form the collection A way of making ghosts. Since he has given some recent online lectures about the relationship between the pieces […]
Wednesday 28 October 2020, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Graham Fitkin talks about his compositions and long-standing musical inclinations, including use of patterns, information flow and juxtaposition. Along the way excerpts from a number of pieces will be heard showing how his work has changed over the years. I compose for live performance, dance, media and […]
Wednesday 21 October, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Following his recent articles for The Guardian and BMC, composer Daniel Kidane discusses his recent compositional practice in relation to his mixed heritage and identity, exploring these themes in relation to his recent pieces Woke (BBC Commission for The Last Night of the Proms), Foreign Tongues (for string quartet), […]
Wednesday 14 October, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Everything from why I started working with words, how working with words allowed me to find my musical voice, how I choose texts, how I adapt them to work for me, how I set them, how I collaborate with living writers, setting texts out of copyright, translations….I will […]
Wednesday 7 October 2020, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Ryoko Akama will present some recent projects, and will consider the way her work has developed over recent months without the possibility of live performance. Ryoko Akama works with installations and sounds and approaches listening situations that magnify silence, time and space. Her sculptural work engages with mundane objects and […]
Wednesday 30 September 2020, 12-2pm [online via Minerva] Composer Laurence Crane will show a selection of his music. Drawing on over 35 years of work in composition, he will talk about some of his recurring preoccupations as a composer over this period. Laurence Crane was born in Oxford in 1961 and studied composition with Peter […]
Wednesday 19 February, 12-2pm, CM107 In recent years, experimental music has defined itself as an aesthetic and a “sound” identified by specific pieces and composers. In this talk I will try to shift the discussion back to experimentation as a central part of the composition process regardless of an aesthetic or sound. In my own […]
Weds 22 Jan, 12-2pm, CM105 James and Matt will each look through a recent piece and discuss their working process, from initial ideas and planning, through to completion and realisation.
Wednesday 15 January 2020 12-2pm CM105 Jan works as a sound designer for short and feature independent films, documentaries and animations. His practice is based on a story driven approach to sound design. Particular interest areas are perspectival shifts and abstractions in film sound design and the crossover between scoring and sound design. A list […]
Wednesday 8 January 2020, 12-2pm, CM105 Drawing from her PhD research, compositionally examining the British brass band from a different perspective, combining traditional instrumentation with atypical elements, including electroacoustic additions, live sound manipulation, advanced performance techniques and using multiple ensembles. The presentation will include a look into research methods, composing techniques and artistic preferences, live demonstrations […]
Wednesday 11 December 2019, 12-2pm, CM105 Martijn Tellinga (The Netherlands, 1974) is an artist, composer and occasional performer. His practice fuses elements of concert, installation and performance art. Drawn from a reduced formalist-seeming vocabulary, his work centres on the exploration of sound & listening to express ideas of space, place and process: their reciprocal production, […]
Wednesday 27 November 2019, 12-2pm, CM105 Artist and researcher Davide Tidoni will explore the themes and principles underlying his work. Starting from his research on sound impulses and acoustic space, the first part of the presentation will explore the physical aspects of sound and the active role of the listener. The second part of thepresentation […]
Wednesday 20 November 2019, 12-2pm, CM105Talk 12-2pm Rie will present her work with objects as instruments and sculpture, positioning sounds, and making something happen in space with sound. Rie Nakajima is a Japanese artist working with installations and performances that produce sound. Her works are most often composed in direct response to unique architectural spaces […]
Wednesday 13 November 2019, 12-4, CM105 Talk 12-2pm In the first phase of the afternoon, Berlin-based composer, contrabassist, curator, and researcher Christopher A. Williams (http://www.christopherisnow.com) will offer a brief theoretical background and practical musings on two recent collaborative compositions with and for improvising musicians: Ansage, a radio piece featuring vocalist/performer David Moss and a choir […]
Wednesday 23 October, 12-2pm, CM105 With over 95,000 composers and songwriter members, the Performing Rights Society (PRS)is the organisation that ensures that professional composers and songwriters in the UK are compensated for the use of their work. In 1994 ten percent of PRS earning members were female (PRS, 2017b). In 2015, 22 years later, that number was only […]
Wednesday 16 October, 12-2pm, CM105 Film and TV composer Jim Copperthwaite will present a brief excursion through the world of composing music for picture in which we’ll look at the creative process, compositional technique and craft of writing for the screen. For more information about Jim, have a look at his website
Wednesday 9 October, 12-2pm, CM105 The fourth season of Open Scores Lab opens with Harry Matthews presenting some recent work that explores the subjectivity of noise pollution. Harry will talk about composed and installed pieces that draw on personal testimony. In the afternoon session we will test some new work using portable speakers. Harry Matthews: […]
Wednesday 2 October, 12-2pm, CM105. The Sea Was Never Blue pairs an hour of melodic, dynamic new piano music with bespoke algorithmically-generated live visuals, short films in which each note played on the piano triggers an event on-screen, responding in real time to the give-and-take of the live performance. To create these visualisations, Larkhall (Charlie […]
In this presentation, Roger Mills discusses his new book Tele-Improvisation: Intercultural Interaction in the Online Global Music Jam Session. He presents case study research of how geographically dispersed musicians and sonic artists interact tele-improvisation, and the approaches and strategies they develop to perform across global cultures and time-zones. The presentation includes audio-visual recordings of remote […]
Si will be discussing and presenting examples of his work that explore different approaches to composing and performing with audio-visual interactive systems. Si Waite is a singer-songwriter working with audio-visual interactive systems. He has recently moved from Staffordshire University to Falmouth University and is currently preparing for a PhD viva at De Montfort University. Si […]
Capsizing a boat would break the boat’s functions but would also reveal how it travels forwards: moving to challenge the complacency of those with an incurious view of the boat’s functions. As composer I try to become an outsider to reflect better upon the mechanics of the field in which I operate, attempting to create […]
Dr. Aaron Einbond (Senior Lecturer in Music, City, University of London) will present his recent work for instruments and electronics, positing composition as an act of searching for, retrieving, and sharing musical material rather than creating it “new”. He will elaborate on his practice using field recording, audio transcription, site-specific performance, and technology as timbral […]
The purpose of this seminar is to investigate various ways in which composers engage in collaborative, creative musical processes with others. I shall introduce three projects, each placed in different cultural contexts. I will touch on more general considerations such as democratic musical practices and shared authorship as well as specifics relating to intercultural creative […]
Playing (with) and becoming I will share a few projects, VINST, JUNGLE FEVER, PRAELUDERE, Ode (owed) to O, specualting on where my attachment to spoken/written language and the voice may come from, and how a few conceptual strategies I have used over the years have recently led to rather unexpected results. In the afternoon I […]
Paraphernalia is an planned extensive sequence of new theatrical/multimedia music compositions in which the intention is to collide notions of material agency with a compositional interpretation of Kaloust Guedel’s Excessivism manifesto (2015) and related visual artworks. The sequence also takes, as an elusive starting point, Marco Ferreri’s controversial 1973 film La Grande Bouffe (which centres on a group […]
In this session I’m going to talk about my love of playing with ideas and concepts. Over the years this approach has defined my position as an interdisciplinary composer who has every form of expression at their disposal and is not bound by the limitations of individual genres. I was born in 1971 in Mönchengladbach […]
We’ve had a great couple of days with Trio Atem in residence, giving a concert and working with our MA composers. On Wednesday evening they performed pieces by Nina Whiteman, Pia Palme, and Matthew Sergeant in the MTC. The following day they worked with MA composers on pieces written specially for the trio. The varied […]