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Hughes' impact arises from his music for films without sound, which has rendered historically important silent films, and more recent silent film formats, accessible to contemporary audiences. Critics, programmers and broadcasters have all recognised this impact in their commissions and programming of Hughes' scores, and Hughes' work has also impacted upon the way in which museum curators display film and other archival materials. The films include commercial DVD releases of classic silent films by Sergei Eisenstein and Yasujiro Ozu, music for Joris Ivens' film Regen (1929), music for a new film by photographer Sophie Rickett, and music for a documentary image sequence of photographs from the Imperial War Museum archive.
Dr David Ryan's research at Anglia Ruskin University has achieved impact in the areas of cross-disciplinary events and visual art and music. These include:
Since 2008, Baily has reached out to Afghanistan's shattered communities, using music to recuperate their musical culture and rebuild their sense of identity. Baily's work falls into three categories: education about Afghan music, in and outside Afghan communities; preservation of Afghan musical culture; and deploying musical practice to restore community identity and dignity. His post-2008 work builds on his pioneering research and the Afghanistan Music Unit, founded in 2002. His scholarship is rooted in research, practice, networks, and decades of experience, giving him unique insight into Afghanistan's music and its citizens at home and abroad. Through his interactions with musicians, educators and policy-makers, as well as his own public performances, films and educational work, his research has had a major and direct influence in sustaining Afghan culture, both in Afghanistan and in its worldwide diaspora in Pakistan, Iran, Australia, Germany and the USA, as well as the UK.
Impact consists in engaging with faith communities, performers and arts bodies, academe, consumers and wider society to contribute to public understanding or perception of how art informs, interrogates, and nurtures spiritual awareness in a secular age; and in developing / enhancing insight into specific musical repertoire and its contextual place in the 20th or 21st century. Its focus is both critical interrogation of the creation and reception of music with a sacred or spiritual intent, and actual addition to the existing corpus of such compositional work.
Research at the Reid School of Music (RSM) identified the importance of music making for developing creative and social skills for children with educational and behavioural difficulties. This led to the establishment of the Botanics Project, which has provided primary school children from economically deprived areas of Edinburgh with an intense experience of music making and performing, while equipping their classroom teachers with effective techniques for animating interest in and response to the performing arts. The project has involved about 2000 children and 40 teachers, with an audience of around 500 for each event, many of whom were new visitors to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museum of Scotland.
Since 2006 Professor Christopher Fox has been engaged in a series of linked projects which explore ways in which the engagement of performers and listeners in texted music for vocal ensemble can be enhanced. The research was initially based on received understandings of the perceptible relationship between music and text but, as the project and its impact have developed, the research has extended into a collaborative scientific study of this relationship, funded by two successive awards from the Wellcome Trust. Each stage of the research has been extensively disseminated through public performance, broadcast, recording, print and on-line media and the impact of the research now reaches into a wide range of communities of interest and the general public.
This case study demonstrates the application of Joe Bennett's research into strategies for quantifying, observing and analysing creative processes used by songwriters. Impact has been achieved through three researcher-practitioners at the University — Bennett himself, plus Davey Ray Moor and Richard Parfitt. The research has been disseminated outside of academia through the publicly accessible workshops at the UK Songwriting Festival and Burnsong, which have received national media coverage (BBC, Sunday Times) and attracted participants from all over the world. The research has also had an impact in the commercial music industry through Bennett's forensic musicology songwriting consultancy reports, which have been used by music publishers and law courts in the settlement of songwriter copyright disputes. Summaries of the research have been presented to a non-academic music audience via international print publication (Total Guitar Magazine). Practitioners connected with the research (Moor and Parfitt) have achieved top 10 hits and international music publication for non-academic audiences.
Dr Julie Brown's research on the sounds of `silent film' exhibition in Britain has had an impact well beyond academia. Her collaborations with film festivals and major film venues plus public lectures have brought about an enhanced public awareness of a lost media art. Through a practitioner/academic network and via practice-based activities involving professional musicians she has had a direct impact on musical practice, and also brought significant performances to the general public in well-attended public events and film festivals at major cinema venues in both Edinburgh and London. Her work has led to enhanced public understanding of the history of the sonic dimension of `silent cinema' in Britain.
We have worked with over 100 music and radio organisations to help them meet the challenges which have arisen due to innovations in distribution consumption and interaction technologies. Our impact has concentrated on responding to transformations in music consumption culture and has contributed to the enhancement of economic prosperity, public service and cultural life. Our work has been central to fundamental changes in the activities of several radio and music organisations, either significantly improving their economic position or changing the way they interact with their audiences. We have had further non-economic impacts through a contribution to grassroots music organisations worldwide.
This case study details the broader impact of an extensive programme of research on participation in music and arts activities from childhood through to older adulthood. The research shows how people respond to, feel about, and take up opportunities provided to engage with music and the arts. We have shown that developing a robust musical identity in the early stages of childhood is important in a range of educational situations, including decision-making about later educational qualifications and continued involvement or motivation for involvement in music-making in later years. We have also shown that participation in the arts can contribute to enhancing community identity and challenging negative stereotypes about ageing. The research has had an extensive impact on arts education and participation policy in the UK as evidenced by discussion at major forums and inclusion in staff training, on the international music and arts practice community through inclusion in policy documents and multiple invitations to various events, and on wider public debate about the value of music and arts in people's lives as evidenced in the development of community arts events and discussion in editorials.