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The case study shows how short chamber compositions by composer Piers Hellawell have transformed the musical experience of young musicians within the on-going Chamber Music 2000 project in England. Circles of impact radiate from his provision of practicable new chamber work for ensembles: children from 8 to 16 have explored the challenging demands of performing contemporary music created for them in an individual and exciting idiom. They have participated in new experiences in communal music-making; they have processed new notated instructions and encountered unfamiliar sound-combinations; they have become part of a collaboration with professional artists during coaching. Through these experiences young musicians have been equipped to give a world premiere in an international venue, a life- enhancing experience.
This case study focusses on the impact of research carried out by Robin Holloway. As a composer, Holloway has pioneered a sophisticated and multifarious practice based around quotation and reference, which continues to shape both compositional and critical thinking about postmodernism in music. His unique and idiosyncratic approach was initially regarded as controversial before becoming a point of reference and establishing itself as an integral part of a musical mainstream that it helped to form. Through its diversity, allure and referential richness, Holloway's music has reached a large and widespread public and has played a major role in shaping the discourse and terms of reference of new music both nationally and internationally.
Dr Slater researches processes of musical creativity that involve technology. Music from two distinct projects reaches a public beyond academia via radio broadcasts, DJ and club culture, the commercial mechanisms of the music industry and more localised community pedagogy. His work contributes to an international audio culture that draws upon jazz, dance, electronica and orchestral music. Such resources provide rich material for education projects that offer young musicians and sound engineers an insight into the technical, social and musical processes of music production, composition and performance. Broadcast and pedagogy represent the two main routes through which his work has a wider impact. This case study documents impact on quality of life, cultural life and on pedagogy.
The impact described below relates to practice-based research conducted in proximity to and in association with a diverse range of public institutions and communities. The case for impact resides in part on the methodological proximity of the work to key sites of social utility and benefit. The deployment of 'participation' as a research methodology and the benefit accruing thereby to participating individuals and agencies in the scientific, penal, religious, arts, healthcare and educational sectors offers a ready conduit for the dissemination of knowledge and the generation of impact. The claimed impact informs the content and direction of (i) music education practice & curricula (ii) arts organisation policy (iii) discursivity within and between cognate disciplines (iv) musicological exegesis and (v) audience engagement.
Misa de Corpus Christi, a choral-orchestral composition by Agustín Fernández, has been of seminal benefit to Instituto Laredo, a specialist music school in Cochabamba, and of key significance to the wider community in Bolivia. As the focal point of a major music-educational project developing instrumental, vocal, choral and orchestral practice, the composition has had a direct influence on the personal and professional development of 220 students and teachers from the school. Performances of the piece to several capacity audiences in large (1000+) venues were received with enthusiasm and acclaim. Misa is viewed as an emblem of both Instituto Laredo's success and Cochabamba's musical achievements, and represents a pertinent example of the role of musicking in the articulation of cultural identity.
`Anya 17 is not just an opera. It's a campaign' (cast member's blog, http://tinyurl.com/ne64uqt).
Anya 17 (an opera about human trafficking), first performed in March 2012, generated wide media and civil society attention. 13 UK and international anti-trafficking campaigning groups have endorsed the opera and used it to raise awareness and help leverage their agenda to change legislation. Third sector and media attention has taken the research to a wider community than just the original audience, winning recognition and enabling follow-through of various kinds. Collaboration, publicity and support from NGOs has enabled Anya17 to further its reach internationally, with performances in Romania, Germany, the UK and the USA in the near future creating opportunities for developing further impacts on opera audiences, campaigning organisations, wider civil society and government in Europe and America.
Birmingham Conservatoire has established a leading reputation in the UK and Europe for the composition and dissemination of new music outside of concert hall conventions, including: site-specific work; concept pieces; contesting genre boundaries; and re-framing the relationship between composition, performer and audience. Through their award-winning compositions and performances, notably for the Cultural Olympiad, the Conservatoire's composers have played a key role in changing understanding of the experiences that new music affords (wit, entertainment, spectacle, theatre, surprise), and in effecting public discourse through media coverage, audience reach, participation and audience co-creation. Their influence on curricula of other HEIs has similarly expanded through an Erasmus programme with nine other European bodies.
Research by Professor Michael Finnissy at the University Southampton into the development of musical notation and works of extended duration has resulted in the composition of more than ninety new musical works, which have been publicly performed hundreds of times in classrooms, concert halls, at international music festivals and on radio, by both amateurs and professionals, to audiences totalling more than 700,000. Through concerts, recordings, public lectures and media coverage, Finnissy has disseminated his research insights and creative approach to a growing audience, contributing to popular knowledge of contemporary music and compositional practice, the democratisation of new music performance, and the involvement of new music in social and political debate.
Dibble's research on Britain and Ireland's neglected Victorian and Edwardian composers, particularly Hubert Parry (1848-1918), Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and John Stainer (1840-1901), together with his public engagement and media work, has had a considerable influence on British musical culture. As a result of Dibble's research there has been a substantial increase in the performance, programming and recording of works by these composers, leading to enhanced awareness, enjoyment and understanding of this repertory and its importance to the nation's musical heritage. This research has also led to increased public access to archival documents related to this music, brought work to orchestras and choirs and contributed to the sales generated by music, CD and DVD publishers.
Works written by RNCM composers, performances and commercial recordings of new music by the world-renowned RNCM Wind Orchestra and its staff conductors, advocacy and leadership in UK and world-wide organisations, and copious educational spin-offs from research, have, over the past 20 years, made significant impacts on the development of both the quality and innovative practices in the huge international wind orchestra movement. New compositions in particular, have contributed to a notable re-invigoration of creative practice, inspiring successive generations of musicians to engage with demanding contemporary music in what has traditionally been an artistically conservative medium. RNCM composers have also introduced the wind orchestra into new genre areas including the jazz concerto and oratorio.