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This case study explores the way in which unforeseen, serendipitous impact can lead to planned and managed impact. Mealor's research in choral music led to serendipitous impact when a student group's performance of Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal was heard by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge. Unforeseen impact on one person led to an invitation to write Ubi caritas for the 2011 Royal Wedding. Alongside all the music performed at the ceremony, this piece reached a worldwide audience through its dissemination on broadcast media. Unlike the rest of the music, this particular piece has achieved impact on a global scale.
The impact of the research by the Echochroma New Music Research Group at Leeds Metropolitan University relates to new approaches to interactivity in music performance and composition. The group has produced internationally recognised creative works as well as outputs that discuss and establish theoretical models and approaches within contemporary composition, new media and entertainment. These works have been presented internationally to both professionals and the wider public, gaining recognition for outstanding work through international prizes, and influencing practice in the areas of education, entertainment and composition at local, national and international level.
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 Surrey has established the International Guitar Research Centre, led by Prof. Steve Goss and Dr. Milton Mermikides, a central strand of which experiments with the innovative use of acoustic resonance.
Practice-based research outcomes (compositions) have created impact as artworks, having been recorded on Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Telarc, Naxos, and Virgin Classics. CD sales emerging from the project are in excess of 200,000. The compositions have been performed internationally by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.
The new techniques developed at Surrey are utilised by renowned musicians, such as John Williams, Xuefei Yang, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Russell, and Miloš Karadaglić.
Research (2003-12) by Osborne at the Reid School of Music (RSM) revealed a need for a new musical instrument for disabled users. Under the direction of Osborne, between 2006-8 an interdisciplinary team across Music, Psychology and Physics, including RSM-based Schögler, developed a new musical `object', the Skoog, which allowed people with a wide range of disabilities accessible expressive control of sound. A spin-off company, Skoog Music, was formed in 2010, which now employs six staff, and has sold more than 1,000 units in 16 countries, generating an income of around £600k. The Skoog is widely used by schools and education services and in clinical music therapy by institutions such as Drake Music. It featured in the Best of the Best 2010 in Able Magazine. It was one of three instruments to inspire the composition Technophonia by Oliver Searle, performed at the South Bank as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and short-listed for a 2013 British Composer Award.
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.
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.
The development of a new compositional tool for electroacoustic music (using technology to explore, create and perform sounds not limited to traditional instrumental sources) based on visual shapes has generated new ways of thinking that influence creative practice, and has inspired and supported new forms of artistic expression. New musical outputs composed by Dr Manuella Blackburn, generated from using the tool, have enriched the lives, imaginations and sensibilities of individuals and groups, locally and internationally. Parallel to this, the tool has been implemented in a number of educational situations (including workshops and textbooks) ranging from school-aged learners (11-18) to university undergraduate students, beyond Liverpool Hope University as the submitting HEI.
`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.
Baysted's creative research practice in composition and sound design culminated in a critically acclaimed and globally distributed commercial racing simulation game. The impacts of this research are worldwide commercial success, enhancement of the user (gamer) experience and the stimulation of public debate and discourse. Evidence is provided in terms of computer games sales, professional and amateur review.