The Metalization of a Dream (2019-2020). This output was commissioned by the UK leading contemporary music chamber group Galvanize Ensemble and the internationally acclaimed early music ensemble Fretwork Viol Consort (up to 45-minutes).
This output was premiered at Newcastle Lit & Phil in February 2019 and has since toured a number of prominent venues and festivals in the UK, including nonclassical (London), Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, and the leading international contemporary music festival, SOUND Aberdeen. Future tour dates for 2022 (postponed due to Covid-19) include London’s foremost experimental music venue, Café OTO, and RNCM (Manchester). In November 2020, the work was the focus of a 1-hour radio broadcast on the leading UK experimental music radio station Resonance FM and broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s flagship contemporary music programme ‘New Music Show’. The tour and commission fees were supported through highly competitive grants from the Arts Council of England, Creative Scotland, Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, and the Performing Rights Society Foundation (PRSF).
Written for any combination of instruments and electronics, The Metalization of a Dream is an open form composition responding to the dada and surrealist-inspired collages of Eduardo Paolozzi that combine original and found materials. As such, this output explores ways in which collage techniques, namely linear or simultaneous juxtapositions of distinct materials and resultant instances of happenstance, can be used in a composition. This output was developed over a period of 18-months through a series of studio sessions, workshops and rehearsals with both ensembles. During this period, I was awarded a highly coveted Britten Pears Foundation residency at The Red House, Aldeburgh, to complete this output.
In terms of originality and significance, this output engages an emergent area of research, namely Spatial music, that utilises physical space as a musical parameter in composition. Similarly, the use of electronicsinvestigates ways in which sound, in the form of live radio and environmental ambient recordings, can be used to evoke extrinsic identities and spatialities beyond the confines of the performance venue. In summary, this output contributes to an array of notable areas of practice-led research, namely Spatial Music, soundscape composition, open form composition, and live electroacoustic ensemble music.
This output was a key underpinning publication in the UoN NottFAR REF21 Impact Case Study that yielded a substantive expansion of pathways to impact. In 2020, research born from this output informed knowledge exchange initiatives that lead to the development of an extensive digital programme of concerts and festival. This programme engaged over 30 regional and national SMEs and drew an international audience in excess of 30,000. In terms of impact, this output and subsequent programme supported artistic resilience and audience engagement in the region for new music in the wake of Covid-19.