Newcastle University

Aims

•       To enhance and develop rehearsal and performance skills in the context of a professionally-structured collective performance project

Original Summary:
In this module you will participate in an intensive performance project as part of a team, working with one or more professional practitioners, in a series of rehearsals leading up to a public performance. This will give you a realistic taste of actual professional collective music-making, as practised in the world at large. The available projects will vary from year to year, covering a variety of different genres and combinations, and you will be required to commit yourself to one or other in negotiation with the module leader, who has overall responsibility for allocating appropriate musicians to the projects. This commitment will be in the form of a ‘contract’ and the whole project will be conducted along professional lines – rehearsals periods (about 10 days in total, which may involve intensive weekends, or periods of several days at a time), private preparation and practice and public performance itself. In addition to your performance, you will also be assessed on the basis of a written report on the entire process.

Outline Of Syllabus

Students choose one of the projects offered each year. Each project entails approximately 9 or 10 days of intensive rehearsals normally undertaken over the period of one or two months, depending on timetabling, together with a professional musician or musicians during which a public performance is prepared and executed. Students also keep a detailed diary of the entire process. Following the final performance students write an essay reflecting on the project in terms of their own contribution and experience in the context of some wider concepts of group musical activity

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Intensive group rehearsals spread over a limited period of time provide students with realistic experiences of professional-level-collective music-making, leading to a fully public performance. They will learn to define and find solutions to a very wide range of challenges encountered in the areas of music-making, collaboration and cooperation, collective and individual responsibility and both group and self-presentation. Private study time allows them to practise technique and repertoire in order to prepare for rehearsals; this study time may well include collaborative study with other students in the project.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The written report and self-assessment allows the student to describe, reflect on and assess the project in terms of both the collective and their own individual role(s) in its process.
The performance itself provides evidence of the contribution of the student to the success of the project and the group assessment procedure is appropriate to the collective nature of the module. The project leader’s report will be available to the panel to inflect the mark awarded, if necessary.