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This case study details the impact of collaboration between three colleagues at the University of Aberdeen - Mealor, Stollery (Music) and Davidson (History of Art) and how the resulting work has contributed to a reassessment of opera in the twenty-first century in the context of the work of Scottish composers such as Thea Musgrave, Peter Maxwell Davies, Judith Weir and Sally Beamish. In 2010 the team created the opera 74 Degrees North, commissioned by Scottish Opera for its FIVE:15 series of new operas.
The impact of the work can be evidenced in the following ways:
a) Securing of excellent reviews in national press;
b) Near capacity audiences over eleven performances at three national venues;
c) Plans with Scottish Opera to create a new longer version of the work for future performance nationally and internationally;
d) Further collaboration between composers in Music department to create new work with the capacity to achieve impact;
e) sound festival 2012's commitment to a weekend of new approaches to opera composition;
f) Development of a substantive and continuing relationship between Scottish Opera and University of Aberdeen.
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.
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.
Recent work carried out in Cambridge has brought academic research and performance practice into multiple relationships; the impact of this work has been far-reaching and various. On the one hand, research on the origins of polyphony and on nineteenth-century piano music has impacted performance practice and, through this, the experiences and thinking of a broad listening public. Some of this research has enabled performers to revive scores long thought unperformable, while other work has empowered interpreters in ways that would have been unimaginable before the digital age. On the other hand, research that links polyphonic composition and performance practice with scientific thinking has explored the potential of the concert hall as an arena for research, turning music into a vehicle for public engagement with science. In this way, academic research informs and transforms musical performance and listener experience, while the practice of performance informs and transforms the understanding of music.
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.
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.
The University of Huddersfield's performance-led research into the consort of viols and its relationship to the voice has resulted in familiar repertory being heard in new ways and the performance of music largely unknown to modern audiences. This work has earned international recognition through public performances, lecture-recitals, commercial CDs and radio broadcasts, influencing instrument makers, performers, concert promoters and audiences. Its importance is further evidenced by a close association with the National Centre for Early Music, advising on and leading events and the award of a £268,000 AHRC grant for the project The Making of the Tudor Viol.
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.
The impact claimed in this statement comes from the composition and performance history of Fantasias by Julian Anderson, a major work for large orchestra composed in 2009. Three key spheres of impact are noted: first, improving the technical and expressive abilities of seasoned and young professional musicians through the preparation and performance of a challenging piece of contemporary music; secondly, drawing a wider audience than that which normally listens to uncompromising contemporary music; and lastly, supporting young composers by the involvement of Fantasias' composer in various bodies concerned with new music.
With a series of three CDs, created by his ensemble The Dowland Project on the ECM label, Dr John Potter succeeded in bringing early vocal music that was formerly the preserve of the `classical' concert hall into the realm of contemporary practice, including jazz. The CDs and the public performances that followed them, influenced the creative practice of leading professional musicians from both sides of the jazz/classical divide, and directly inspired the creation of an innovative digital work by Ambrose Field (Being Dufay), which has itself received international acclaim through CD reviews and public performance in significant venues. Potter's work has played a significant part in the preservation and reinvigoration of musical heritage, while proposing and demonstrating a new creative approach to early music.