Dr Bennett Hogg
Lecturer

vCardDr Bennett Hogg

I am a composer with a particular interest in electroacoustic music, but who also works with notated scores and with free improvisation, and a cultural theorist with particular interests in the relationships between the human body and technology, words (especially contemporary poetry) and music, the human voice, and the mid-twentieth-century avant-garde in music, literature and the fine arts. I am also now investigating the building of new instruments with which to interface with the computer.

Research Interests

Electroacoustic composition
instrumental composition
free improvisation
cultural theory and the voice and technology
the velvet underground
psychoanalytical informed hermeneutic approaches to culture
music and the moving image
music theatre

Other Expertise

Mostly gardening

Current Work

editing special edition of Contemporary Music Review with Sally Jane Norman, "Resistant Materials"
"Sound Objects Found Objects" - journal article currently being placed for publication
"l'oiseau chant avec ses doigts" for solo guitar and live electronics
"Resistant violin" project, STEIM
"Great parisian modernists" project (with Julian Siegel and Magnus Andersson, inter alia)
collaborations with "nanako" (Spain) and Bryan Day (Nebraska, USA)

Selected Publications

More Publications

Future Research

Distributed performance and improvisation.
Theories of free improvisation.
Book chapter on music and consciousness relating to embodied improvisation.
Electroacoustic composition.
Free improvisation (violin and electronics).
Instrument design.
Bodies and technologies.
Theories of cultural origins - neolithic cultures.

Research Roles

Member of ICMuS Research Committee
Co-director of Postvernacular Music Research Project (CETL funded)
Co-organiser of "Music and machines" seminar series (with S J Norman)
Co-organiser of conference "Improvisation: Freedom and Tradition"
Co-organiser of "Music and Machines VII" associated with Newcastle-Gateshead AV Festival 2008".

Postgraduate Supervision

Principal supervisor of PhD students Nick Williams, Adam Parkinson, Jamie Thompson, Chris Leary, and Paul Bell.

Esteem Indicators

Invited as performer and speaker to GEM Days at Huddersfield University, January 2010.
Invited to contribute to collectively produced composition for the retirement celebration of Prof Denis Smalley, City University, October 2009.
Recent peer reviewed papers given at "The Musical Body, IMR, London" (April 2009), and "Music Since 1900, Keele" (July 2009).
Joint keynote with Magnus Williamson at "Nothing new: Understanding newness in medieval and contemporary music", Huddersfield (April 2009).
Invited presenter at "Creativity, Innovation and Labour in Music" at The Open University June 22-23, 2009.
Member of CILM Research Network based at OU, Milton Ketnes.
Music broadcast by BBC Radio 3, CKCU-FM Ottawa, QRSoundhour Belfast, ArtRadio Manchester, and featured in installation in FutureSonic07 Manchester.
Member editorial board ARiADA text (webjournal).
Member editorial collective Radical Musicology (webjournal).
Reviewer/reader for "Organised Sound" journal
Keynote speaker at Music and Surrealism study day Leicester DeMontfort University, July 2006.
Guest research papers at SOAS, Bath Spa University, UEA, De Montfort, Norwich School of Art, University of Aberdeen
Conference papers IASPM UK (Newcastle), IASPM International (Montreal), "British Forum for Ethnomusicology" (Brunel), "Music and Gesture" (Norwich), "ConferenceCATH" (Leeds), "Surrounded" conference on electroacoustic music (Keele).
Solo and group perfromances at Stockholm Konstakademien and Fylkingen. residencies at EMS (Stockholm) and STEIM (Amsterdam).
Co-organiser of conference associated with Newcastle-Gateshead AV Fetsival 2008.
CD of collaborative project "my little pop group" released on Clinical Archives label, Moscow, 20-21st october 2007, release of two other projects scheduled for later in 2007-early 2008 - "wormhole" (with Will Edmondes and John Ferguson) and "january 2007" (with Sten-Olof Hellstrom)
Invited to collaborate with Bryan Day (Nebraska, USA), nanako (Madrid), and Alexander "Djet" (Moscow)

Industrial Relevance

absolutely none

Background

Bennett Hogg completed his undergraduate degree in music at Nottingham University in 1982 and also has an MA in ethnomusicology from Durham University and an MMus in electroacoustic composition from UEA, supervised by Denis Smalley. He has worked as a composer in both electroacoustic and "conventional" media and has received several prestigious commissions and awards for his work, including commissions from the Royal Opera House's "Garden Venture", Sarajevo Winter Festival, Sonic Arts Network and Welsh Jazz Society, organisations whose diversity attests to his pluralistic creative outlook. He is currently a lecturer in ICMuS having spent the past five years in Newcastle researching for a PhD partly funded by an AHRB scholarship. “Who’s Listening”, an essay on power relations in recorded music was published in 2005 in the collection Sounds of Resistance, Suppression, and Subversion: Essays on Music, Politics, and Power edited by Annie Janeiro Randall (Routledge). "Meetings, Spaces, Desire: Some Personal Reflections on the Work of Ann Rosen" is an extended essay for the exhibition catalogue "schhh...", a major solo exhibition of sound installations by Ann Rosen, Swedish artist and composer, at Konstacademien, Stockholm - see www.annrosen.nu/sch/katalogEN.pdf He is also currently developing a long-term creative project with the Swedish composer Sten-Olof Hellstrom based in the Royal Technical High-School, Stockholm. He recently performed at Konstakademien and Fylkingen, as soloist and with the free improvisation quartet "My Little Pop Group." He is also a member of the trio "Wormhole," with John Ferguson and Will Edmondes who were recently featured on Radio 3's "Mixing It" and more music has recently been broadcast on Queen's radio, Belfast and "Now's the Time" on CKCU-FM, Ottawa. His most recent electroacoustic work "What Did You Find?", completed at EMS. Stockholm in January 2007 was part of an installation at FutureSonic07, Manchester, and was broadcast as part of the Cornerhouse Gallery's "Art Radio" project in June-July 2007, and a CD of his work with Sten-Olof Hellstrom is due out next year. His collaborations on the group projets My Little Pop Group and Wormhole are now released on the web-label "Clinical Archives" in Moscow, and collaborations/CD releases with Technonucleo (Spain) and Bryan Day/Public Eyesore Records (Nebraska, USA) are sceduled for early summer 2008. He is currently working on a "resistant violin" (see his personal website bennetthogg.co.uk for details and images) at STEIM, Amsterdam, and collaborations with jazz saxophonist Julian Siegel (BBC Jazz Musician of the Year), avant-garde classical guitarist Magnus Andersson (in collaboration with EMS Stockholm, funded by Svenska Rikskonserter), and distributed improvisation using Skype with David Stackenas, Tao Vrhovec-Sambolec, John Ferguson and Sten-Olof Hellstrom. He is the founder of the research series "Music and Machines", and recently co-organised a 3-day conference on "improvisation: freedon and tradition" with David Clarke in December 2007, and was one of the organisers and moderators for "Music and Machines VIII" as part of Newcastle-Gateshead's "AV Festival 2008".

Roles and Responsibilities

Lecturer
DPD of BMus in Popular and Contemporary Music
ICMuS Research Committee

Qualifications

BA Hons in Music
MA in Ethnomusicology
MMus in Composition
PhD in Music

Previous Positions

lecturer, north tyneside college of further education
lecturer, norwich institute of art and design
lecturer, university of east anglia
lecturer, city university, london
lecturer, muzicka akademija, sarajevo
lecturer, edinburgh college of art

Memberships

performing rights society
MCPS
UCU
CILM Research Network
sonic arts network
canadian electroacoustic community
sound network
editorial board of ARiADA text (webjournal)
member of editorial collective, Radical Musicology (webjournal)

Languages

English
French
Serbo-Croat/Bosnian

Informal Interests

Walking in the country, reading Harry Potter books, gardening, watching decent films, cows, running, travel, Sweden, alchemy, surrealist literature, Max Ernst, punk rock, baby pygmy hippos at Edinburgh Zoo, free improv, british folk musics - especially playing the fiddle.

Undergraduate Teaching

Practical Studies in Popular Music (MUS2059)
Specialist Study Performance (MUS3104 and MUS3108)
Electroacoustic Music (MUS3086)
Creative Projects (MUS1097)
Creative Music Technologies (MUS2043)

Postgraduate Teaching

MMus composition
primary PhD supervisor:
Adam Parkinson
Chris Leary
Jamie Thompson
Paul Bell
Nick Williams