October 2014

Distractfold wins award

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Dr. Sam Salem’s Distractfold Ensemble wins International Award

The Darmstadt summer courses have been going since 1946 but this year, for the first time, the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, Darmstadt’s most prestigious award for performers, went to a British ensemble, the Manchester-based Distractfold Ensemble, led by Dr. Sam Salem.

In the words of composer Christopher Fox: “It’s a huge achievement. Distractfold were up against tough competition, including many fine soloists, the wonderful Mivos Quartet from New York, and the French group soundinitiative. British composers have won the composition prize on a number of occasions, James Clarke being the most recent in 1992, and British solo performers have won the Kranichsteiner, starting with the pianist Peter Hill in the 1970s, but it’s never been awarded to a UK-based ensemble before.”

Read more here

Robert Stillman: Leap of Death

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LEAP OF DEATH
The film 4 Devils was released in 1928 by Fox Film Corporation. Directed by F.W. Murnau (Sunrise, Nosferatu), the circus-themed melodrama was a full-fledged Hollywood production of the late silent era. After its release, the film disappeared, and remains ‘lost’ to this day.
85 years later, composer Robert Stillman, writer/printmaker Anna Fewster, and bookbinder Sarah Bryant conjure 4 Devilsback into existence with ‘Leap of Death’, a limited edition bookwork/LP that resurrects the lost film as ‘imaginary fragments’ of original music, image and text.
Drawing inspiration from existing 4 Devils archive materials such as scripts, production stills, and promotional materials,  as well as from Les Quatre Diables, the 1890 Herman Bang novella upon which the film script was based, Stillman, Fewster, and Bryant’s work reconstitutes the 4 Devils narrative as an impressionistic ‘atmosphere’ of black-and-white trace monotype images, letterpress text, and through composed music, inviting an interpretive, non-linear experience of Murnau’s story-world.
The bookwork/LP is available in a limited edition of 50 numbered copies, each consisting of one vinyl LP, six booklets, and three posters, collected in a clothbound enclosure.
To order, and to view/hear a digital version of the work, visit www.robertstillman.com/leapofdeath. ​

Active Ageing with Music

Dr Maria Varvarigou publishes her first book: Active Ageing with Music
 
Dr Maria Varvarigou, in the School of Music and Performing Arts, has had her first book published. Entitled ‘Active Ageing with Music – Supporting wellbeing in the Third and Fourth Ages’, the book presents findings from the ‘Music for Life Project’ on the positive impact of active music making on older people’s health and wellbeing.
 
Written with co-authors Andrea Creech, Susan Hallam and Hilary McQueen, the book balances research with practice and looks at issues of accessibility and resources, potential barriers to participation and supporting principles and practices for facilitating groups of older people.
 
Active Music Ageing with Music – Supporting wellbeing in the Third and Fourth Ages is available to buy in the University Bookshop priced at £22.49.

James Dean: New Article

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James Dean’s new study of Pat Metheny has just been published in Routledge’s Jazz Perspectives Journal. 

Editor’s Introduction:

“James Dean reminds us, through an intricate analytical study of the physicality of performance, that musical sound cannot be regarded separately from the practicalities of making music. His study of the fingerings of Pat Metheny, based on his analysis of a video recording of a live performance, will serve as an important model for assessing the kinetic aspects of jazz improvisation, a topic which has seen scant attention in jazz studies.”

James’ article was listed in Taylor and Francis Online 25 Most Read Music Articles of 2014

 

Conferences 2013-2014

Over recent years MPA staff have engaged in research projects across five continents and by the end of the academic year 2013-14 our staff had hosted, chaired and contributed to conferences across the UK, in Europe, in North America and Africa with a broader range of disciplines than ever before.

Regional/UK/International:

At CCCU Dr. Lauren Redhead and Dr. Vanessa Hawes hosted the 2nd Annual Conference of the Music and/as Process Study Group, bringing a distinguished field of scholars to Canterbury including the keynote speaker, the Department’s new HOD, Dr. Nicholas McKay.

MUSIC FOR WELLBEING AND HEALTH, Rye Studio School, Rye, East Sussex. Special Guest Speakers: Giorgos Tsiris (Nordoff Robbins and St. Christopher’s Hospice) and Dr. Maria Varvarigou (Canterbury Christ Church University)

UK:

At the Univerity of Warwick in July/August Dr. Kene Igweonu chaired a panel focussing on ‘Theatre and Stratification’ at the IFTR.

Europe:

Dr. Angela Pickard presented a paper on ‘Bodies in Physical Culture’ at the University of Gothenberg, Sweden (December 2013), as well as upcoming panel chairing at the World Dance Alliance Global Summit in Angers, France (July 2014).

Tina Krasevec attended the International Documentation of Contemporary Dance Education Symposium in Vienna (August 2014)

Dr. Robert Rawson presented and chaired at the 16th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts, Salzburg (July 2014)

Africa:

Dr. Kene Igweonu disseminated his research at the conference of the African Theatre Association, University of Ghana and presented his work at the University of Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe University (July 2014)

North America:

Dr. Erica Buurman delivered a paper entitled ‘Beethoven’s Waltzes in England: Dissemination and Reception in the Early 19th Century’ at the 18th Biennial Conference on 19th Century Music, Toronto (June 2014)

Dr. Maria Varvarigou delivered a presentation on ‘Intergenerational Music Making for Children and Young People’ at the International Conference of Music and Medicine, in Toronto. (June 2014)