creative events, fine art, music, news, research

Research Seminar – Dr Jennifer Walshe

March 11, 2014

Tonights Research Seminar we present Dr Jennifer Walshe.
Bridge Wardens College, Lecture Theatre
6-8pm
Tuesday, 11th March, 2014

Dr Jennifer Walshe will present her recent work.
She is a composer, performer and visual artist of whom the Irish Times has said that “without a doubt, hers is the most original compositional voice to emerge in Ireland in the last 20 years”. Jennifer Walshe says of her work that “the sounds I am interested in include those that we hear all the time but are normally considered flawed or redundant: twigs snapping in a burning fire, paper tearing, breathing, instrumental sounds that aren’t considered ‘beautiful’ in standard terms.

I think these sounds have their own beauty in the way that pebbles on a beach or graffiti can have.”

Download the Poster: Research Seminar-Jennifer Walshe

Upcoming Seminar:
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The Rebirth of Music from the Spirit of Drama – Jean Martin

View our Research Seminar webpage
View the Events Calendar

music, news

Live Music Wednesday – 7: Performance Platform

March 11, 2014

Join us for live Music every Wednesday!

7: PERFORMANCE PLATFORM
12th March 12-1pm, Galvanising Shop

Come and experience mixed weekly programmes from our fabulous BMus performers. All welcome! (Music starts 12.15)

Performers

Joyce Si Voice

Lindsay Edmondson Clarinet

Lydia Andrew Voice

Becca Hurrell Sax

Rhian Powell Voice

Dan Orton Bass

Andy Flintoff Voice

creative events, fine art, news

Visiting Artist Talk – Adam Dix

March 5, 2014

The School of Music and Fine Art are delighted to welcome artist Adam Dix in the next Fine Art Visiting Artist Talk on Thursday March 6th.

Thursday March 6th 6-8pm
Bridge Wardens College
BWC 102

Adam Dix’s work concerns itself with signs of communication technology and our own desire to communicate. His exploration and personification of these devices of modern information transmission, explore the comprehension of technology on a humanistic level.

By focusing on the abundance of communication devices in contemporary society, his work discusses ‘allure’ for the user and is further exaggerated by appropriating the ritualistic, ceremonial traits and imagery often found in the genres of science fiction, nationalism and religion.

Adam Dix Profile:
Recent shows include: Yesterday’s Prophets at Eleven Gallery London. Ici Londres at Galerie Silin, Paris France. Carousel at Aspex Portsmouth. Creekside Open (Ceri Hand) at APT Gallery London. News From The Sun at Phoenix Art Centre Exeter
www.adamdix.com/

Download the Poster – Adam Dix
Visit the School of Music and Fine Art – Fine Art ‘ Visiting Artists Talks’ webpage

music, news

Thursday Lunchtime Concert – The Octandre Ensemble

March 5, 2014

Open to Students and Staff and free to come along and enjoy…

When: Thurs 6th March
Time: 1-2pm
Location: The Galv.

We are delighted to have The Octandre Ensemble back again this year and they will be visiting us this coming Thursday, 6th March.

The Ensemble will be giving a concert in the Galv from 1pm through to 2pm featuring an excellent programme of contemporary music including Luigi Nono’s ‘Sofferte…’ for piano and electronics.

This is a valuable opportunity to hear some truly exceptional professional musicians. The concert will be followed by a workshop (which you’re welcome attend) which will focus on approaches to writing for violin, clarinet and piano.

Entry is free for staff and students.

http://www.octandre.com

Concert Programme;

-Berg: Vier Stucke (clarinet and piano)

-Nono: ‘Sofferte…’ (piano and electronics)

-Webern: Vier Stucke (violin and piano)

-Stravinsky: Soldiers Tale (violin, clarinet & piano)

Also on Thursday:
Don’t forgot we also have Line Upon Line percussion trio with us tomorrow, giving a performance workshop at midday followed by a concert at 6pm – both are in the Galv.

creative events, fine art, music, news, research

Research Seminar – ‘The Sounding Image: Interactivity in Audio Visual Video’ by Dr Holly Rogers

March 4, 2014

Tuesday, March 4, 2014
6-8pm
Bridge Wardens College, BWC201Dr Holly Rogers will be visiting the School of Music and Fine Art to present some of her ideas from her recent publication ‘Sound the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music’, which explores the first decade of creative video work, focussing on the ways in which video technology was used to dissolve the boundaries between art and music.

Becoming commercially available in the mid 1960’s, video became integral to the experimentalism of New York City’s music and art scenes. The medium was able to record image and sound at the same time, allowing composers to visualise their music artists to sound their images in a quick and easy manner. Video also enable the creation of interactive spaces that questioned conventional habits of music and art consumption.

The mediums audio visual synergy could be projected, manipulated and processed live and the closed circuit video feed drew audience members into the heart of the experience. Such activated spectatorship resulted in improvisatory and performative events, in which the space between artists, composers, performers and visitors collapsed into a single, yet expansive, intermedial environment. Many believed that audio visual video signalled a brand new art form that only begun in 1965.

Rogers book suggests that this is inaccurate. During the Twentieth Century, composers were experimenting with spatialising their sounds, while artists were attempting to include time as creative element in their visual work. Pioneering video work allowed these two disciplines to come together. Shifting the focus from object to spatial process, Sounding The Gallery uses theories in intermedia, fim, architecture, drama and performance practice to create an interdisciplinary history of music and art that culminates in the rise of video art-music in the late 1960s.

Download the Poster: SMFA_Research Seminar_04.03.14

Upcoming Seminar:
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Dr Jennifer Walshe will present her recent work.

View our Research Seminar webpage

View the Events Calendar

creative events, news

Creative Events Graduate revisits the Dockyard to meet students and see our new facilities

February 28, 2014

Creative Events graduate Charlotte Lam recently returned to Kent to see the new developments and talk to staff and students about her experiences and successes and how she put her learning into practice.

Charlotte Lam (left) talks to students about her career experiences

Graduating in 2010 with her degree in Creative Events, Charlotte then returned to her home in Hong Kong to undertake an internship with Katemagg and was shortly snapped up by EC Square PR and Events where she was PR and Events Executive. This exciting experience gave her confidence to set up an events company called AHHA Events & Projects, where she now project manages brand launches, provides media marketing campaigns and organises products launches.

During Charlotte’s recent visit to the UK, she took some time out from her busy schedule to come and talk to students about the experiences of her studies, internship and her recent business start-up. She reflected upon working some exhausting 14-hour days during her time with EC Square PR and Events, as well as producing events for clients such as Louis Vuitton with a group of current 3^rd year students.

Charlotte also told students about AHHA Events & Projects recent work in designing and producing the Junghans Store opening in Macau, as well as the 60^th Anniversary celebrations for Max Factor in Hong Kong, and how she has been able to apply her education into the real world. “One of the main parts of my job is pitching ideas to my clients. I regularly put into practice my learning from my 3^rd Year Project Pitch module, but I do find I have to be a bit sharper on the costs and budgets now!” said Charlotte during an informal chat with staff and students who enjoyed her candid reflections.

Director of Studies of Creative Events, Peter Hatton said “it was fascinating to hear how Charlotte now knows every venue in Hong Kong and its suitability for client events, as well as how she has had to become a tough negotiator with suppliers and contractors. The staff here are extremely proud of her achievements”.

During her visit she was treated to a guided tour of the School’s new facilities, where she was both surprised and impressed by all the additions since her graduation in 4 years ago. The tour encompassed the new Engineering Workshop and the Smithery studios, the audio studios and the workshop as well as the Hub and the new café, all of which was new to Charlotte, as the Galvanising Shop was the only creative space when she studied here.

“The changes are phenomenal and it is exciting to see so many students together here in the workshop, they have such great facilities at their fingertips” said Charlotte, “I want to come back and study here all over again!”

music, news

Claudia Molitor sound installation and composition premiere performance at Bristol New Music Weekend.

February 27, 2014

School of Music and FineArt Lecturer in Music, Dr Claudia Molitor attended Colston Hall last weekend to help launch the first ever Bristol New Music Weekend during 21^st-23 February.

Claudia’s sound commission ‘I dwell in sound and sound dwells in me’ was installed and a composition was given a world premiere by string quartet Quatuor Bozzini on Saturday, 22 February.

Bristol New Music Weekend 2014 was the inaugural event to celebrate and showcase new and experimental music on an international art arena as well as working to create opportunities for emerging regional artists, organised by Colston Hall, Arnolfini, Spike Island, St George’s Bristol and the University of Bristol.

Claudia Molitor’s sound installation was designed to take its audience on a journey through the building. The installation ran throughout the space of Colston Hall, starting in the entrance foyer, leading visitors up through the new and down among the old buildings towards the final installation of the old ticket hall. ‘I dwell in sound and sound dwells in me’ is a playful look at the uncertainties and hesitancies involved in the creative act. Both ‘Listening’ and ‘Seeing’ are explored, in an experience that takes upon the musical experience as a multi-sensory encounter.

Additionally, on Saturday, 22^nd February, the string quartet Quatuor Bozzini performed a premiere of one of Claudia’s compositions at St Georges Bristol as part of its Bristol New Music residency at the University of Bristol.

Claudia-Molitor_Colston Hall Flyer

Bristol New Music
Claudia at Colston Hall
Quatuor Bozzini

music, news

US Percussion Trio, ‘Line Upon Line’ visit and demonstration at Kent

February 26, 2014

As part of their UK Tour, the US percussion trio Line Upon Line will be visiting Kent and are coming to the School of Music and Fine Art.

Demonstrating contemporary techniques and a commissioned repertoire in a workshop open to all Music students, Line Upon Line will be providing an evening concert on Wednesday 5th March, 2014.

Line Upon Line Workshop
12-2pm
The Engineering Workshop

Evening Concert
6pm Concert,
Galvanising Shop

Formed in 2009, Line Upon Line percussion is committed to seeking new ways for percussion instruments to advance contemporary music. To date, the ensemble has commissioned and premiered a dozen new works for percussion.

fine art, news, research

Special Screening of Perestroika: Reconstructed by Director Sarah Turner at the ICA, March 2nd

February 25, 2014

Sarah Turner has been invited to the ICA London for a special screening to launch the LUX DVD/BluRay of both films ‘Perestroika’ and ‘Perestroika : Reconstructed’, followed by a questions and answers session.

The screening is open to all, to be held this coming Sunday, 2^nd March
at the ICA, London, Cinema 1. Hosted by Helen de Witt, British Film Institute,
Head of Cinemas. The DVD will be on sale for a special discount price of £15.

Perestroika: Reconstructed is a ghost story that combines the genres of documentary, essay film and film poem. Part psychogeography, part dream and part environmental allegory, the film explores the process of memory: both what we forget and how we remember. Sequence one constitutes the 2009 version of the film, whilst the second sequence constructs a new framing narrative that reinterprets and reconfigures both the imagery and the experience of the first.

Limited to views from the window of the Trans-Siberian train, both sequences of Perestroika: Reconstructed conclude at Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, contrasting experiences of terror and apocalypse with those of beauty and tranquillity, the one contaminating the other. In this uncanny return, the instability of the environment is twinned with the instability of memory.

‘A ruined hotel. A lake as big as a sea. And a death, never explained but by now as momentous to us, and as engulfing, as a black hole. What begins as a travelogue with philosophical trimmings turns into a puzzle picture worthy of Resnais or Antonioni.’
Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

‘Elegantly photographed, sound- designed to precise and goose- bumping effect, this is a rare and haunting work of memory-gleaning.’
Sukdev Sandhu, The Telegraph

‘Conceived with intelligence and arresting intensity’
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

LUX Special Screening:
Sunday, 2^nd March
13.30
Cinema 1, ICA London
£8-£10
LUX Publication Page
LUX Facebook Page

Book to attend the screening:
ICA, London

LUX DVD/BluRay Release:
2 Disc Dual Format DVD/Blu Ray
DVD 9 PAL Region 0/ BD 50 Region 0
Perestroika, 2009, 118 mins
Perestroika: Reconstructed 2013, 178 mins
Plus new essays by Elizabeth Cowie, Sophie Mayer, and Paul Newland
Published by LUX
Price £22 individuals / £60 institutions

Purchase the DVD/BluRay:
LUX, Artist’s Moving Image

music, news, research

MAAST plays tribute to electroacoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani

February 25, 2014

The School of Music and Fine Art’s ‘Music and Audio Arts Sound Theatre’ (MAAST) system is set to diffuse a sequence of electroacoustic works by the legendary French composer Bernard Parmegiani as an tribute to his music, during a 3-day Festival in March 2014.

The School’s research-focused sound diffusion system, designed to explore spatial sound, is set to relive some of the works of the late great pioneer of electroacoustic music, Bernard Parmegiani, who passed away last November. Hosted by LCMF, the event will take over a former carpet factory, a magnificent 20,000 sq ft space in Brick Lane, London.

Parmegiani’s rich body of work, spanning nearly 50 years, stands among the most important in electroacoustic music, influencing generations of artists within the academy and beyond it.

Following the success of the School’s recent Symposium on Acoustic Ecology, the School’s MAAST innovative diffusion system, comprising more than 30 loudspeakers, will once again be showcased from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd of March.

Curriculum Lead for Music and Audio Arts and Director of MAAST, Dr Aki Pasoulas, along with Ambrose Seddon and Diana Salazar will be diffusing Parmegiani’s music from the 1970s on Saturday 22 March.. The influential electroacoustic composers and scholars Denis Smalley and Jonty Harrison, along with Peiman Khosravi will be diffusing Parmegiani’s works on the first day of the festival, Friday 21 March; while on Sunday, the director of the renowned Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), Daniel Teruggi, will conclude the 3-day tribute festival.

We look forward to this event and encourage anyone interested in attending to book tickets online (http://lcmf.co.uk) as soon as possible, because they are selling fast We hope this gives our MAAST system another enthusiastic performance and platforms the developments we are making in spatial sound out to a wider audience.

Any SMFA students interested in volunteering for the event, please contact Dr Aki Pasoulas as soon as possible. This will be a work experience not to be missed, as you will be working alongside the most distinguished and influential composers and scholars of music and audio art today.

Bernard Parmegiani (1927-2013)
Parmegiani initially trained as a mime, a practice he often drew on when describing his music. It was Pierre Schaeffer who, in 1961, convinced him to start composing. In Schaeffer’s musique concrète, the building blocks of composition were not notes and rests, but recordings. Pieces were created through collage and the transformation of acoustic sounds on tape. It was this technique that Parmegiani developed so expansively from the 1960s onwards.

While Parmegiani found himself at the centre of Schaeffer’s GRM, he also led a parallel career, composing for film, television, and even for Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.