Research Projects in Music

Newcastle New Music: Music by ICMuS ComposersResearch activities at ICMuS are constituted around both the work of the traditional 'lone scholar', and around collaborative work. Our projects are thus either focussed on monographs and other single-author outputs such as compositions, or performances, or formed around teams of scholars and/or practitioners, located both within and outside ICMuS; much of this work is funded by the UK research councils (AHRC) and other external funders, for example the British Academy, The Leverhulme Trust, The Fulbright Foundation and many others (recent funders have also included the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, The Mellon Foundation, Palatine, and many more).

Current Projects

Completed Projects

Early English Church MusicEarly English Church Music

  • Staff from ICMuS: Magnus Williamson

Early English Church Music is published by Stainer & Bell on behalf of The British Academy. The aim of the series is to make available church music by British composers from Anglo-Saxon times to 1660, in a form both scholarly and practical. The present General Editor is Magnus Williamson. The series includes work by anonymous and undeservedly neglected figures, as well as much of the output of acknowledged masters such as Thomas Tallis, John Taverner and John Sheppard. From Volume 41, volumes are published in a new larger format, and are hardback; in 2007 EECM published its fiftieth volume, a facsimile of the Winchester Troper edited by Professor Susan Rankin (Cambridge University). Volumes in preparation include the Gyffard Partbooks II, theYork Masses, Latin church music by Robert Fayrfax, and Sheppard's compositions for both Catholic and Reformed rites.

[return to top]

 

Music and Machines

  • Music and Machines, a series of seminars and workshops organised jointly by ICMuS and Culture LabStaff from ICMuS: Bennett Hogg
  • with Sally Jane Norman, Culture Lab

“Music and Machines” is a series of research events that have been run by Dr. Sally Jane Norman (director of Culture Lab), and Dr. Bennett Hogg (lecturer in ICMuS) since 2005, focussing on establishing dialogues between technology, creative practice, and cultural theory. As well as several one-day symposia with invited speakers, national and international artists-in-residence, and participants from across the Faculties both in Newcastle University and the other regional universities, Music and Machines has also included three national/international level conferences. It has demonstrated excellent support for research students and staff at Newcastle, fostered national and international networks and collaborations, has contributed significantly to engagement through presenting numerous public performance events, and reinforces Newcastle University’s commitment to interdisciplinary and innovative research in the arts and humanities.

[return to top]

 

Research into assessing group performanceAssessing Collective Performance: Joint Research Project

  • Staff from ICMuS: Richard Wistreich
  • with Jane Ginsborg, Research Fellow at the Research Centre for the Vocational Training of Musicians at our ‘sister’ CETL in Music, the Royal Northern College of Music.

A two-year project, to track the progress of a variety of different student ensembles in different genres (folk ensembles, pop bands, string and wind quartets and quintets) and at different stages of their degree programmes. A successful application for research funding (approximately £10,000) was made to Palatine (the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music) in July 2007, and research is now underway. Tutors and students from each institution will meet and share experiences, as well as taking part in joint assessment exercises.By the end of the project, we aim to be able evaluate such things as how student ensembles are best formed (student self-selection? at random? by audition?), the ways in which we tutor and support student ensembles as they develop and also, how we assess them. We are very hopeful that the results of our study will be of interest and use to all kinds of higher education institutions where music performance is taught, whether universities, colleges or conservatories, and we plan to disseminate our results as widely as possible.

[return to top]

 

The charango in contemporary musicThe Charango in Contemporary Music

  • Staff from ICMuS: Agustín Fernández
  • with composers and performers from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Sweden

Funding has now been approved (by the city of La Paz and the national government of Bolivia) and negotiations are underway for the implementation of an ambitious project entitled The Charango in Contemporary Music submitted by Agustín Fernández to the Municipal Government of La Paz. The city of La Paz has been designated cultural capital of the Spanish-speaking world for 2009, and its authorities have called for proposals for suitably large-scale projects to mark the occasion. Agustín Fernández has been championing the charango as a new voice in contemporary music ever since he composed his electroacoustic opera Teoponte (1988) in which charango sounds play a fundamental role. Fernández’s Wounded Angel for charango and electronics has been widely performed and broadcast; it features on the NMC album Mixed and also in a recording by Stefan Östersjö on his album Playtime. His cycle of etudes for charango/ten string guitar and flute/piccolo/alto A to Z is also in the repertoire of Östersjö's duo with Terje Thiwång. Fernández has encouraged composers in the UK to write for the instrument, and has premièred new works by Douglas Young, Michael Rosas Cobián and Andrew Lovett. The proposal is to bring together composers and performers from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Sweden, for a series of performances and recordings in La Paz in October 2009. As well as disseminating existing repertoire the project includes commissions to generate new work.

[return to top]

 

Sounds of the Slayer: An edited colection of essays Sounds of the Slayer: Music, Sound and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  • Staff from ICMuS: Paul Attinello (editor)
  • with Janet Halfyard (Birmingham Conservatoire) and Vanessa Knights (School of Modern Languages)

In press at Ashgate, this collection of essays will be published summer 2009. This collection interprets roles and functions of music and sound in this popular TV show through analyses of production, themes, scoring and source music, the critically acclaimed ‘musical’ episode, the special use of silence, and reception of music by fans. A variety of critical approaches are taken from musicology, music theory, cultural studies, and media studies. Authors include noted Buffy scholars Rhonda Wilcox and Catherine Driscoll, with forewords and afterwords by Anahid Kassabian, Keith Negus, and Christophe Beck.

[return to top]

 

Voice in the Construction of Early Modern IdentityVoice in the Construction of Early Modern Identity

  • Staff from ICMuS: Richard Wistreich

This is a multi-disciplinary project that examines the voice in many different contexts, from the representation of singing in musical notation, through early modern anatomy, physiology and psychology, to the place of the voice in rhetorical training, in the theatre, in church, and other social spheres. The project was recently the subject of a seven-month Mellon Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Newberry Library, Chicago, from January to August 2007. A series of conference papers, articles and book chapters about various aspects of the project have already appeared and it will eventually become the subject of a book-length study.

[return to top]

 

Sandra KerrSandra Kerr: Tour, Performances and Recording

  • Staf from ICMuS: Sandra Kerr

Sandra Kerr is wearing her usual array of hats this year, as performer, recording artist, educator and choral director. Performances/workshops include:

  • Baring-Gould Festival in October
  • Leading a Mass Sing at The Sage Gateshead for Folkworks 20th Birthday Celebration
  • Folk Singing Weekend courses at Farncombe Estate in the Cotswolds
  • Benefit Concert for Morpeth Flood Victims 4th December , Morpeth Methodist Hall directing her popular women’s choir Werca’s Folk
  • Recording/releasing two new CDs for Fellside Recordings www.fellside.com for their ‘Smallfolk’ catalogue– ‘ Sing Ovy , Sing Ivy’ and ‘Hi! Said The Elephant’ (to be launched at the Sage Gateshead. Date tbc)
  • On-going ‘Solo Singers’ tuition for ‘20,000 Voices’
  • Project to create a new choir for girls and young women.

[return to top]

 

ICMuS Transitions ProjectICMuS Transitions: A Longitudinal Study of Six Music Undergraduates

  • Staff from ICMuS: Felicity Laurence and Dawn Weatherston

The project seeks to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a music undergraduate through a longitudinal study of six music students during their three/ four years of undergraduate study within ICMuS. Although the study is based on music students it is anticipated that many of the findings will be generically applicable to the under-graduate experience; analysis of the students’ interview transcripts is already helping to inform future pre–entry support, curriculum development and transition strategies for ICMuS students.

The project uses the methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and closely adheres to the desired characteristics identified by the researchers for their longitudinal study in that it should:

  • be ‘naturalistic’ (focusing on informal as well as formal learning)
  • capture the complexity and authenticity of case studies
  • sample purposefully (choosing learners who are characterised by behaviours or qualities of particular relevance)
  • employ semi-structured interview schedules
  • acknowledge that rapport between researcher and interviewee is paramount

The project has been funded by Newcastle University’s internal Innovations Fund.

[return to top]

 

Newcastle New Music: Music by ICMuS ComposersCD of New Music by ICMuS Composers

  • Staff from ICMuS: Kathryn Tickell, Tim Garland, Agustín Fernández
  • with ICMuS PhD students: Sergio Camacho, Joel Eriksson and Matthew Rowan

As part of its extensive engagement programme and coinciding with the formal constitution of its record label, ICMuS will be launching another recording for commercial distribution. It will be the third CD to come out of ICMuS, but the first release on the new label ICMuS Sounds. The album’s title is Newcastle New Music and it contains works written by three members of staff and three research students at ICMuS. The performers are Mr McFall’s Chamber, Scotland’s ground-breaking group of virtuosi chamber musicians. Kathryn Tickell, iconic figure of Northumbrian music and a lecturer on the Folk and Traditional Music degree, provides the opening track Lordenshaws, a work she wrote to a commission from Northern Sinfonia and was first performed by members of this orchestra in Newcastle in 2000. Tickell herself plays the Northumbrian pipes, and Peter Tickell is guest violinist.
Tim Garland, a world leader in jazz performance and composition, is represented by his In Translation, which was co-commissioned by Mr McFall’s Chamber and was premièred by this ensemble in Edinburgh in 2007. The piece is for bass clarinet and piano quintet, featuring the composer on the bass clarinet. The third track is Botanic Spider by Agustín Fernández, professor of composition at ICMuS. This virtuoso work was first composed for the Belfast-based ensemble Sequenza in 1992, but was extensively revised in 2003 for a performance by members of Northern Sinfonia. Matthew Rowan is a writing-up PhD student, and his String Quartet No 1 challenges the ensemble with a rigorously executed exploration of the tensions between repetition and variation. Sergio Camacho has devoted his years of research at ICMuS to developing an extensive music-theatre project for which he has also devised the libretto. His work Four Names for the One Moon constitutes one of the many stages of the research that feed into the magnum opus that will be his eventual submission. Joel Eriksson, writing up for his PhD and already a lecturer at Gothenburg University, contributes to the album his Fantasi, a finely-crafted meditation on a Bach chorale.
The release is expected in early December. Further information from agustin.fernandez@ncl.ac.uk.

[return to top]

 

Sex versus Death: Paul Attinello's project on Music about AIDSSex versus Death: Music about AIDS

  • Staff from ICMuS: Paul Attinello

A projected monograph that examines various works of music composed in response to the pandemic. These works, by classical composers, popular musicians, and performance artists among others, reflect changes in attitudes related to sexuality, illness, and loss, as well as the relations between medical discourse and cultural myths. At a more technical level, they also reflect similarities and contrasts among musical genres, subcultures, audiences, identities, other artistic media, and some of the emotional and ideological patterns associated with each. This monograph focuses on commercial products, thus chiefly considering on the urban West, with reflections on major musical productions in other parts of the world.
In preparing this monograph, Dr. Attinello has published several articles on music written about AIDS; in press are additional articles entitled ‘AIDS Rage: Paranoia and Anger in Music about AIDS’ and ‘Being Exhibit A: Teaching AIDS and Music in the University Classroom’.

[return to top]

 

Masculinity and Western Musical PracticeMasculinity and Western Musical Practice

  • Staff from ICMuS: Ian Biddle (editor), Kirsten Gibson (editor) and Richard Wistreich (contributor)
  • with Elizabeth Leach (Oxford University), Howard Irving (University of Alabama at Birmingham), Fred Everett Maus (University of Virginia), Marcia Citron (Rice University), Corissa Gould, Claire Taylor-Jay (Roehampton University), Iain Stannard, Annamaria Cecconi (Conservatorio Statale di Musica ‘A.Vivaldi’, Alessandria, Italy), Esther Zaplana (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)

This is a volume of edited chapters, published by Ashgate, each of which addresses the relationship between masculinity and art music or musical practice. Each of the 12 chapters deals with a specific case study, drawing from a wide range of musics and periods (from medieval music to the mid twentieth century). Whilst these case studies are methodologically disparate and located in different historical and geographical locations, they all share a common concern for critical revaluation of the role of masculinity (in all its varied representations) in art music practices. The volume thus represents a timely contribution to the development of masculinity studies within musicology (and beyond). The volume is organised thematically around three core areas – effeminate/virile musicsand masculinities, national masculinities and national musics and masculine voice, discourse and identity.

The volume is now out. Click here to access publication details on Ashgate's website.

[return to top]

 

Paul Attinello and Joyce Shintani's Gerhard Stäbler ProjectGerhard Stäbler Project

  • Staff from ICMuS: Paul Attinello
  • with Joyce Shintani (Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe; Université Marne-La-Vallée)

Paul Attinello and Joyce Shintani are editing a collection of papers on the graphic and conceptual scores of German postmodern composer Gerhard Stäbler; the book will be co-published by Pfau Verlag and the University of Rochester Press. Stäbler is well known for the range and variety of experimental and collaborative forms taken by his music. Contributions on his most distinctive works are written by composers including Charles Amirkhanian, Laurie Anderson, Dieter Schnebel, Kunsu Shim and Amnon Wolman, performers including Anton Lukoszevieze, and critics such as Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Johannes Bultmann, backed up with reproductions of his most beautiful graphic scores,extended bibliographies, and an annotated list of works.

[return to top]

 

The Phonographic Industry in Portugal in the Twentieth CenturyThe Phonographic Industry in Portugal in the 20th century

Funded by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, this project will carry out a systematic study on the history of the recording industry in twentieth-century Portugal and its impact on the production, and dissemination of music and on the music product itself. Research will be carried out from a multidisciplinary perspective, combining theoretical and methodological approaches from ethnomusicology, popular music studies, history, cultural studies, anthropology, and historical musicology. Taking into account cultural, economic and political developments in contemporary Portugal as well as the history of the international recording industry, this project will analyze:

  • the trajectory of the major record companies;
  • the phonogram as a product and the equipment associated with its (re)production within the framework of the electrification of the country and the market for electrical equipment;
  • the demand for phonograms within the framework of the consumption of cultural goods and the increase in the buying power of the population;
  • the technologies used and their impact on compositional processes, performance practice, music sound and audience behavior; the articulation between the recording industry, live performance, sheet music, and other mass media, especially radio, cinema, and television;
  • the legal framework within which recordings were produced and commercialized;
  • the impact of the recording industry on musical domains such as popular music, fado, pop-rock, folklore, and art music; the role of sound recordings in the dissemination of new musical domains in Portugal such as jazz and pop-rock;
  • the articulation in record production between Portugal and its former colonies;
  • the impact of sound recordings produced in Portugal on selected Portuguese emigrant communities and the ways in which these communities condition segments of music production;
  • the role of sound recordings among selected immigrant communities; the role of publicity and graphic design in promoting recordings

See here for more details.

[return to top]

 

Technologies of MemoryTechnologies of Memory: Ritual, Remembrance and Recorded Sound

  • Staff from ICMuS: Ian Biddle (co-author), Nanette de Jong (co-author), Richard Elliott (co-author)

This monograph, co-authored by three members of staff at ICMuS, will deal, both through critical engagement with recent developments in the theory of technology, and through a number of historically- and geographically-located case studies, with the part played by music in public acts of mourning. The variety and complexity of these public acts of what James Young has termed 'memory work' points both to a radical discontinuity in the kinds of memory rituals we are able to enact in the post-9/11 landscape and to a startling continuity with earlier twentieth-century modalities of public mourning. Drawing on a range of materials from North America, Europe and Africa, and from a range of historical locations from within the so-called 'long twentieth century', this book asks the extent to which the musical underscoring of public mourning and ritual serves as a symptom of broader cultural and historical shifts in public consciousness about agency, democracy and community. The book will deal in particular with the part recording technologies have played (and continue to play) in shaping our relations with the past.

[return to top]



The Resistant Violin

  • The Resistant Violin, a project by Bennett HoggStaff from ICMuS: Bennett Hogg

The idea for “the resistant violin” came while talking to Daniel Schorno at STEIM, Amsterdam. He mentioned how cellist Frances-Marie Uitti had difficulties playing with heavy motion sensors on her bow. Rather than lightening sensors I imagined developing a way of playing my violin that would “use” this extra weight. From this, I imagined this weight interfering with my “normal” playing, pushing me into a different kind of playing. In commercial culture, digital technologies are often advertised as making music “easier” but I enjoy the implicit critique of the banality and universalism of this position by deploying digital technologies to make “musical expression” more difficult.

The bow and violin are connected together at several points with very strong elastic with motion sensors at either end that generate MIDI data. This makes not only makes it physically difficult to “express” oneself on the, but the data generated by the various sensors inputs to software that disrupts whatever sounds are generated. The instrument and the digital technology thus conspire to subvert expressivity, resulting in a performance that moves between aggressive struggle, and shuddering paralysis. This project connects with the practical side of my ongoing academic research into the relations of humans and technology and is being developed in collaboration with the institute STEIM, Amsterdam. The project is a starting point for future theoretical and practical research in free improvisation and live electroacoustics.

[return to top]

 

Noise, Audition, Aurality: Histories of the Sonic World(s) of Europe, 1500-1945

  • Noise, Audition, Aurality Staff from ICMuS: Ian Bidle and Kirsten Gibson (editors)

This is a proposed collection of essays exploring the soundscapes of Europe from c.1500 to 1945. The collection seeks to open up new areas of interdisciplinary scholarship from a range of fields including (but not limited to) musicology, urban geography, history, literary studies, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, psychology and anthropology, and will build on existing work in acoustic ecology, the sociology of noise and histories and historiographies of noise, audition and aurality. We will favour contributions that deal with historically-informed topics in the following areas (although this is by no means an exclusive list):

  • The noise-sound-music nexus
  • Urban/rural soundscapes
  • Public/private soundscapes
  • The acoustic ecology of communities
  • Legal histories of noise
  • Noise, music and the body
  • Listening and the erotic
  • Political economies of noise
  • Noise, music and landscape
  • Theories of hearing and listening
  • Historical acousmêtres
  • Historiographies of noise, audition and aurality
  • Technologies of sound reproduction and their histories

[return to top]