Composer/ Choreographer/ Performer Collaboration Conference of Contemporary Music and Dance 2012

Sound, Music and the Moving -Thinking Body

Senate House University of London

April 19th 2012

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Institute of Musical ResearchUniversity of London

Senate House Malet Street

London WC1E 7HUTel: 0207 664 4865

By TubeNearest underground stations: Russell Square (Piccadilly Line)Goodge Street (Northern Line)Tottenham Court Road (Central Line and Northern Line)Euston Square (Circle Line and Metropolitan Lines)Euston Station (Victoria Line & Northern Line)By AirFrom Heathrow, the Piccadilly tube line provides a service (approx. 45 minutes) to Russell Square. From Gatwick, both Network Rail and Gatwick Express run trains to Victoria station (30 minutes) where tube trains and taxis are available.By RailEuston, King’s Cross and St. Pancras mainline stations are within 10 mins. walking distance. The other London mainline stations are a short tube or taxi journey away.

Director’s welcome

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the first Composer/Choreographer/Performer Collaboration Conference of Contemporary Music and Movement Making: Sound, Music and the Moving-Thinking Body.

The Call for Papers attracted an unexpectedly high number of first-class proposals, to the extent that we could accept only about half of them. I am sure you will agree that the programme is rich and diverse and the insightful research on display testifies to the increasing interest in the collaborative aspect of new music/dance making across the sector and the significance of the contribution of the moving-thinking body to this process.

The aim of today is to create conversation between music/dance artists, teachers and researchers from diverse backgrounds and reflect upon what the relationships linking sound, music and movement mean and can offer those working in this area in the twenty-first century. There are a number of people to thank for the Conference. Firstly, the speakers who have spent so much time and effort in preparing for this conference and for being willing to share their work with us today. Secondly, the conference organising committee, Osvaldo Glieca and Neil March who have both greatly facilitated my role as conference director. Thirdly, the Institute of Music Research and the Department of Music at Goldsmiths who have worked together with us in providing this opportunity. I am especially grateful to Jeremy Peyton-Jones, keynote speaker, who has shown a commitment to the conference since its inception and whose expertise in the field provides the foundation for this event. Additionally, I would also like to thank Professor Roger Redgate for his opening speech.

Thank you for attending this conference and I hope you will enjoy it. If there is anything that I or my colleagues can do to help make your day more enjoyable and profitable, please do not hesitate to ask.

Marilyn WyersConference Director

Osvaldo GliecaAssistant, Project Co-ordinator

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The Programme 9:30 - 10:00

10:00 - 10:15

Session 1

10:15 – 10:35

10:35 – 10:55

10:55 – 11:15

11:15 – 11:35

11:35 – 11:45

Session 2

11:45 – 12:05

12:05 – 12:25

12:25 – 12:45

12:45 – 13:45

Registration and Coffee

Welcome and introduction

Chair: Marilyn Wyers

Presentation 1: The Interaction Between Sound and Movement: a

Workshop

Presentation 2: The effects of auditory and visual feedback on musicians physical movement and looking

behaviour in interactive performances

Presentation 3: Compose on the floor: a case study

Presentation 4: The myth of Orpheus in Romanian contemporary ballet: links

between musical suggestion and moving expression

BREAK

Chair: Neil March

Presentation 5: ‘Last Night a Dance Film Saved My Life’: Jazz, Dance &

Choreogeography in the 21st Century

Presentation 6: Soundpainting: choreographing and composing in the

moment

Presentation 7: Interdisciplinarities and their responses to the changing times

LUNCH

Professor Roger RedgateHead of Centre for Contemporary Music

Cultures, Goldsmiths

Shakti Zapata, Jiin Ko, Sul Hui LeeGoldsmiths

Robert FulfordRoyal Northern College of Music

Mark WraithEx-principal dancer Rambert Dance

Company

Tatiana OlteanMusic Academy of Cluj-Napoca,

Romania

Alex Reuben Dance Moviemaker

Dr. Helen MinorsKingston University

Osvaldo Lorenzo GliecaGoldsmiths

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13:45 - 14:45

Session 3

14:45 - 14:50

14:50 – 15:10

15:10 – 15:35

15:35 – 15:50

15:50 – 16:20

16:20 – 16:30

Session 4

16.30 – 16:50

16:50 – 17:10

17:10 - 17:30

17:30 – 18:00

18:00

Keynote Address: Sound production as theatrical action

Chair: Dr. Helen Minors

set up time

Presentation 8: Comprovisation, Emergence and the Fluxations Human

Body Interface

Presentation 9: Inside/Out: music gesture and choreographing musicians

Presentation 10: Performance seeking nothingness

Presentation 11: Materialising Metaphors: Workshop/Lecture

BREAK

Chair: Osvaldo Lorenzo Glieca

Presentation 12: Two Bee for Oboe Piano Soundscape and Film

Presentation 13: Hip-hop originated music and the hip-hop contemporary

body

Presentation 14: Devising Music and Devising Musicians

Presentation 15: Shaping music, shaping you: The Twin Track. Interactive

lecture

Closure of conference

Jeremy Peyton-JonesGoldsmiths

Dr. Joshua Mailman & Sofia ParaskevaColumbia University/New York University

Stefan Östersjö & Nguyen Thanh Thuy Malmö Academy of Music

Rees ArchibaldCoventry University

Magnus AnderssonNorwegian Academy of Music

Kelvin Thomson, Rachel Broadbent,Kevin Vockerodt

Royal Holloway, University of London

Nefeli TsioutiMiddlesex University

Michael PicknettGuildhall School of Music and Drama

Marilyn Wyers, Jenny Hughes, Neil March

Goldsmiths/RAM/Goldsmiths

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The Interaction Between Sound and Movement: a WorkshopShakti Zapata Gomez, Jiin Ko, Sul Hui Lee

Breaking down the barriers between performer, composer and choreographer; the three performers will share, mix and shift their own roles, for example, dancers sing, composers dance and singers choreograph so that the audience might not notice the barrier between them and therefore break the traditional, categorized roles. The second part focuses on instinctive ways of communication rather than elaborate technicality. The structure of the piece will be real moment creation within a pre-composed frame and each of the performers will be dealing with some form of unfamiliarity that will lead them to connect with their natural instinct. Lastly, movement plus air in connection with materials (plastic and paper) will be used to create a soundscape and a choreographic score. All the performers will interact with the materials and with each other, creating alternative means of communication.

Abstracts

Compose on the floor: a case studyMark WraithThe dance theatre creates a very particular environment for the creation and performance of music, in 1977 Harrison Birtwistle wanted to accommodate the moving-thinking body in his commissioned piece for Ballet Rambert. He decided to “compose on the floor of the theatre”. As one of the twelve musicians and dancers involved in Birtwistle’s collaboration with the Dutch choreographer Jaap Flier, I consider the piece’s success/failure. My case study shows how this particular musical work (Frames, Pulse and Interruptions) cannot be understood without considering the environment in which it was created. I conclude that much of Birtwistle's thinking concerns the embodiment of the music in performance. The work is the intersection between music/dance.

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The Effects of Auditory and Visual Feedback on Musicians’ Physical Movements in Interactive PerformanceRobert Fulford Evidence from interviews with musicians with hearing impairments shows they develop complex strategies for interactive performance relying on dynamic, or sometimes reduced, auditory attending and increased visual attending in music-making situations. Visual cues relied upon include the movements and gestures of other musicians facilitating ensemble synchrony or ‘togetherness’ in group music making: singers’ breathing, the raising of wind instruments to the mouth, players’ fingers on the fingerboards of string instruments and the sweeping arc of the bow arm. These findings suggest that there may be a relationship between auditory feedback and the use of visual cues by musicians with hearing impairments. The aim of the present study was to explore the use of visual and auditory cues by examining the looking and movement behaviour of performing musicians.

The Orpehus Myth in Romanian Contemporary BalletTatiana OlteanThe present research focuses on two musical scores recently composed. Orfeuridice, a ballet for choir and chamber ensemble by Şerban Marcu and The Lyre of Orpheus, a choreographic poem by Tudor Feraru. The research focuses on the staging of the two works, comparing the choreographic perspective of Melinda Jakab, who was challenged to create two different approaches to the myth in one single show. The particular use of symbols and message involved both in music and dance are linked to the two ideas that lead the choreographic view: in The Lyre of Orpheus, Tudor Feraru sees Euridice as the Lyre itself, implying that losing his creativeness leads to his death, whereas in Orfeuridice, Şerban Marcu proposes a restoration of Orpheus.

Last Night a Dance Film Saved my Life: Jazz, Dance and Choreogeography in the 21st CenturyAlex ReubenDoes Jazz Dance come from Jazz, or does Jazz come from Jazz Dance? As a DJ I was asked where I learnt to dance. I didn’t know, so I went to the deep South to find out. The result was a dance road-movie, ROUTES. Routes is about improvisation - a physical journey of rhythmic, cultural collisions, and choreogeography. I will explore how wood, colonization and religion, combine in dancing-thinking body-culture, to create new art forms from the way that we move. Finally we’ll look at a short clip, illustrating virtual choreogeography - how 24 camera motion-capture, creates two dimensional figures in three dimensional space, from technology originally developed for medical research.

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Soundpainting: Choreographing and Composing in the Moment

Dr. Helen Julia Minors The live multimodal composing sign language, Soundpainting, challenges traditional views of musical composition and performance, choreography and dance. In this paper I interrogate the relationship between music and body in this live creative choreographic-compositional language. I aim to explicate how an embodied understanding of music, and a musical understanding of dance (movement art), is at the heart of this ‘in the moment’ creative approach. In essence we think within, across and between media. This language, I propose, relies on both musical and bodily metaphors in order to communicate across the art forms. Such metaphors become manifest in specific expressive gestures which are equally meaning bearing to both musicians and dancers.

Sound Production as Theatrical ActionJeremy Peyton-Jones

About 10 years ago I wrote a little diatribe about the state of music theatre, and somewhat presumptuously called it The Future of Opera. Around the same time I wrote a related piece as a position statement for a roundtable discussion at the 2003 UEA Music and Gesture Conference entitled Beyond Opera.

In these I argued that, despite the determination of most forward thinking composers to either ignore opera and its moribund conventions as something belonging to another era, or, like Ligeti and Kagel, to upset such conventions through satire, the instances of truly groundbreaking innovative music theatre were the exception rather than the rule and that unfortunately many composers, when commissioned to write an opera, seemed to simply roll over and accept those 19th century conventions fairly wholesale.

Despite the radical developments in musical style, structure, language and syntax in the 40s 50’s 60’s and 70‘s we still found in new operas those operatic conventions alive and kicking – scenic illusion, proto-naturalism, characters singing dialogue, all lines delivered by huge operatic voices, epic themes and lavish sets, separation of theatrical action and (hidden) musical accompaniment. The exceptions to this lay in the more experimental approaches to music theatre. As Nicholas Till so neatly summed up in his own contribution to that roundtable discussion: “It is characteristic of the overcoming of boundaries in twentieth-century art that most forms of experimental music theatre seem more akin to experimental theatre and happening and performance art than traditional opera ... Instead of treating music as an acoustic backdrop to theatrical action as in traditional opera, music theatre tends to develop kinesis out of music-making itself, or conversely, present sound production as theatrical action. In many ways, then, music theatre tries to rediscover the wholeness of musical experience with its sense of ritual and spectacle which has been suppressed in Western classical music (the closed eyes of the intently-listening music lover pointing to a rigid separation between what is essential to ‘the music itself’ and what is an ‘external distraction’: its making).”

Another aspect of this, and something else I explored in my position statement, was the observation that the ‘real’ of contemporary performance and live art is a much better ally of music theatre than naturalistic ‘realism’ of traditional drama, television or film. Two things have struck me in the intervening period: one that it is this physicalization of the musical performance itself that is potentially the most fruitful aspect of the interrelationship between music and theatre/dance, and two, that there have been relatively few genuine examples of this. Aspects of it can be found in the performance events / happenings of the free improvisation scene (for example the extraordinary Dutch drummer Han Bennink, or the UK’s Bow Gamelan Ensemble) both of which offer good examples of the physicalization of sound. Otherwise I would single out two very different examples of work which has included a successful combination of physical performance with music: the work of singer/composer/choreographer Meredith Monk and in particular her 1981 piece devised with her ensemble Turtle Dreams, and the work of German composer/director/theatre maker Heiner Goebbels and in particular his1996 work created with and for the Ensemble Modern: Black on White.

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Comprovisation, Emergence, and the Fluxations Human Body InterfaceJoshua Banks Mailman and Sofia ParaskevaFluxations is a fluid artistic technology for creating unconventionally expressive music through spontaneous (or choreographed) motions of the human body. It exploits new interactivities to address relations between complexity and perception. Other interactive music technologies generate individual sounds directly from discrete gestures or use gestures to manipulate playback of samples. Our approach differs fundamentally, by enabling user-improvisers to steer the flow of spontaneously generated algorithmic music. Comprovisation is compositional by involving composed music-generating algorithms guided by aesthetic concerns and planned choreography of physical movements. It is improvisational by involving spontaneous physical movements or nuanced expressive ornamentations to planned (choreographed) movements.

Inside/OutsideStefan Östersjö and Nguyen Thanh ThuyThis piece addresses issues of gendered identity in the context of the performance of traditional Vietnamese music and how it is expressed in the bodily movement of the performers. Three musicians are placed in glass boxes as if they were objects in a museum. One of the performers is a man dressed and with make-up like a woman. All three wear traditional Vietnamese costume. In the room there is an ‘electronic’ soundscape that is performed in real time with material from the live performance as its source. The movement of the performers will consist of a play with gender norms in the performance of traditional Vietnamese music.

Interdisciplinarities and their Responses to the Changing TimesOsvaldo Lorenzo GliecaThe presentation is a reflection of how knowledge is organized into disciplines, and then re-organised into new configurations and alliances in what we know as interdisciplinarity. These subordinate subjects generally intervene, to recognise the entities of micro-cultures that affects art perception.   My main argument will be that we cannot understand interdisciplinarities without first examining the main disciplines, since interdisciplinary approaches are always an engagement with them.   These are large topics which are influenced by other fields such as cultural studies, sociology, history, anthropology, philosophy, literature,  geography, climate conditions and so on... they should be treated as guest subjects rather then neighbour subjects.

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Two Bee for oboe, piano, soundscape and filmKelvin Thomson ‘Bee’ demonstrates an important intersection between music/dance/technology and performance; that of creative interpretation, re-interpretation and dealing with constraints. It is a revision of an earlier work, The Arrival of the Beat Box, for soprano voice and speaking body-percussionist, which explored copyright constraints on Plath’s words by inventing a new performance language. Controlled improvisation parameters gave the performers space to generate their responses to, and interpretation of, the texts. A series of gestures were developed to use as an alternative form of communication. Choreographic input includes using Laban's rhythmic effort actions such as dab, slash, glide, wring, float and thrust and Laban's perceptions of pathways in space/trace forms using his idea of the kinesphere and geometric shapes such as the cube/box.

Performance Seeking NothingnessRees ArchibaldThis paper will explore how sound, the physicality of the body, and breath are used in the presenter’s performance practice to achieve meditative or ‘flow1’ states of consciousness. I will propose an initial framework based on an engagement with the ‘materials of performance’ (the body, an instrument, the physical/sonic environment) as processes rather than as static objects characterized as an ‘end product’ subject to external observation. In essence, the somatic understanding of a musician’s performative ‘body-mind’ is now being used to inform physical movement based devising aimed at achieving the same meditative state of Zen ‘no-mind’ or absolute nothingness.

Materializing Metaphors: workshop/lecture demonstration

Magnus AnderssonMusical vocabulary is permeated by metaphors of movement that refer to how music sounds. Nonetheless, few people working with music have a fundamental understanding of movement in practice. By exploring some simple exercises, derived from the presenter’s experience as a tango dancer and teacher, we can experience a shift in consciousness from the contemplative to the physical. Aspects of music that have been confined to metaphors can turn into physical reality, and we begin to establish expressive concepts through movement with almost lexical precision. This has numerous consequences. In analysis (and on the other end: in composition) we get new tools for analysing musical expression that pertain directly to musical expression. To the musician, phrasing and rhythm will be closer connected to a physical experience, which in turn can solve musical and technical problems. Our aesthetic view on music is also challenged as musical metaphors turns into concepts with a material reference.

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Hip-Hop Originated Music, Hip Hop Contemporary BodyNefeli TsuotiSince ethnomusicology is the academic study of music from all over the world and it explores the music throughout cultures, the music of the hip-hop culture should not be absent. It is a music influenced by so many genres and expressed in numerous ways, even by using vocal percussion solely. The true hip-hop music, in its purity, can cause bodily movement that no other genre can. I am exploring the relationship between hip-hop-originated music and the hip-hop and contemporary body. I am researching on the movement of a body who has knowledge of hip-hop dance and contemporary dance, but reacts to hip-hop music.

Shaping music, shaping you: The Twin Track. Interactive lecture/demonstrationMarilyn Wyers, Neil March, and Jenny Hughes

Western classical music performance educators are faced with many challenges. One constant challenge is how they make certain that students are optimizing their performance potential. This interactive presentation sets out to explore if body movement/dance tasks in combination with established methods can offer a creative means of addressing this challenge using the sense of shaping music phrase in 21st century piano music as a focus.  The aims of this presentation are to investigate possible learning connections between physically shaping phrase away from the instrument and improving a sense of shaping phrase at the instrument and to consider why these connections might influence the way we perceive and action the music shaping process during performance preparation/learning stages. The implications of this research lie in the possibility that a non-score, body-based approach to perceiving and actioning a sense of shape in music performance, in conjunction with other established means, can be used to optimize music performance potential. At the same time this presentation explores the potential of movement to play a representative role in the composition of music, enabling the composer to deploy different movement concepts in the creative process.

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Devising Music and Devising MusicianMichael Picknett

My research over the last few years has been in finding ways to apply the approaches and aesthetics of devising processes found in Contemporary Dance and Theatre to the composition of Contemporary Western Art music. The principle of devising is to create performing art works through a collaborative workshop-based process that gradually draws material from improvisations and conversations with the performers to create a final product which is personal and intensely meaningful to the performers. Although these processes are widespread in Contemporary Dance and Theatre, they are less well known and used in contemporary Western Art Music. The use of these practices has profound implications on the relationship between the composer, the performers, and the music.

Biographies

Magnus Andersson is an Assistant Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music and a professional tango dancer. He leads the Academy’s targeted area of research in performance: “The co-creative musician”. In 2009 he defended his doctoral dissertation,  Elaborating Nothing. John Cage’s Aesthetics of Silence. He has also studied piano and holds a Master’s degree in performance. His current research interests are artistic research, music and movement, creativity, performance studies and tango. More info at: www.tangotango.no and www.magnusandersson.no.

Rees Archibald (b.1972, Australia) studied saxophone and woodwind performance before moving to Japan to further his studies on shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) in 1996. In 2002 he obtained a Masters in music composition at Wesleyan University in the USA, working with composers Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier and David Behrman. Rees' current research focus centres on an investigation of conscious states in performance. Originally based in instrumental musical performance his work is now moving towards devised physical movement blending sonic arts, installation, visual media, dance and Asian meditation systems. Rees lives in the United Kingdom and currently is a research student of Coventry University.

Robert Fulford is a PhD student in Music Psychology at the Royal Northern College of Music. He studied Music with Education and subsequently gained an MPhil in Educational Psychology at Homerton College, Cambridge. His current research focuses on interactive music-making for musicians with a hearing impairment and is part of an AHRC-funded project in collaboration with the Acoustics Research Unit at the University of Liverpool.

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Sul Hui Lee Through working as a stage manager and assistant director for a number of years in the Seoul Arts Centre I developed an interest in the nature of performance and how body and mind interrelate on the stage. Studying for an MA in Performance Making, my interest became cemented on breathing, the voice, body and identity, themes which I continue to explore in my practical work since graduating this year.

Jenny Hughes studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music. She has given recitals in Leeds, Rotherham, Doncaster, Huddersfield, Bradford, Liverpool, Worcester, All Souls Langham Place, and St Martin in the Fields. She was Head of Music at what is now the University of Worcester  for many years. Upon retirement, she moved to London, and worked as a part-time tutor for the secondary music PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her next performance will be at St Alphege's church in Greenwich with Jeremy Lowe in a recital of little-known works by English composers for clarinet and piano.

Jiin Ko I compose and perform music which reflects my characteristics and cultural background in classical music, gospel music and literature.I started to experiment with sounds and noise after I started studying at Goldsmiths (MMus Studio Composition) and I am trying to grab the contradictions and harmonies through the aesthetics concepts between Seoul and London.

Osvaldo Lorenzo Glieca is a composer born in Rome, and living in London since 2003. His main fields of interest are in opera, contemporary classical, and ethno-music with the aim to re-shape healthy music for culturally wealthy society. His writings are influenced greatly by Umberto Eco, and Jean Baudrillard. Future projects will include a critique to British composer Simon Holt together with the composer himself, the co-foundation of a Journal on Richard Taruskin studies, (2013-14) as well as working on his first opera Mimesis. His art “credo” is based on inventions rather than to express styles, as it is an old and unimportant word.

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Dr. Helen Julia Minors is senior lecturer in music at Kingston University and Associate chair of the Practice Research Unit, at Kingston. She is currently completing a book on music and translation, and chapters on Erik Satie and the Other Arts. She holds the Soundpainting scholarship (2011-2012) with Walter Thompson. Additionally, she is the administrative secretary for the Society of Dance Research, UK. Publications on multimodal dialogues have appeared in: Opera Quarterly (2006), Dance Research (2009), and Cahiers de la société québécoise de recherche en musique (forthcoming 2012). Book/Book chapters published by Continuum (forthcoming winter 2012), Forschingsinstitut für Musiktheater des Universität Bayreuth (forthcoming spring 2012) and Ashgate (forthcoming 2013).

Neil March is a British composer who is currently undertaking PHD study at Goldsmiths, University of London. He spent many years as a Rock musician before returning to art music in 2005. He has since studied at Blackheath Conservatoire, Birkbeck University and Goldsmiths where he completed a masters (MMus) degree in 2010. He has been fortunate to have many of his works performed in venues across the UK, Europe and the Middle East over recent years and his collaborative work with Marilyn Wyers has led to involvement in Conferences and similar events since 2010.

Joshua Banks Mailman graduated from the University of Chicago and the Eastman School of Music, where he completed a music theory Ph.D dissertation on temporal dynamic form. His publications appear in Psychology of Music, Music Theory Online, and Music Analysis, from which he won their 25th Anniversary award for his article on Carter’s Scrivo in vento. Among his forthcoming publications is his article “Seven Metaphors for (Music) Listening: DRAMaTIC” in the Journal of Sonic Studies. He has presented papers on music of Carter, Crawford-Seeger, Ligeti, Brahms, Babbitt, Schoenberg, and topics such as temporal dynamic form, narrative, electro-acoustic music, binary-state Generalized Interval Systems, and octave-equivalence with atonal melodies in the context of long-term memory. He is also active in sound art and music technology design. He has taught at the Eastman School, University of Rochester, the University of Maryland, and Hunter College, CUNY. He now teaches at New York University and Columbia University. Visit www.joshuabanksmailman.com.

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Sofia Paraskeva is an artist who experiments with interactive media, film, video and sound. She explores sound and visuals in the context of leading edge technology, developing computer vision installations and interactive performance wearable instruments such as wireless musical gloves, and bodysuits. Her work spans across interactive art and design, filmmaking, video production, visual effects, graphics and experimental sound. Her passion is creating meaningful ways of communication through the merging of image, sound and performance. Through art and technology she seeks to expand and enhance the human experience. Paraskeva has a BA degree in Visual Studies from Oxford Brookes University and a BA in Media Communication from Emerson College, Boston. She earned her master’s at the Interactive Telecommunications program at New York University in 2009. She is currently developing her interactive musical interface Rainbow Resonance, for children with special needs.

Tatiana Oltean is assistant professor at the "Gheorghe Dima" Music Academy of Cluj Napoca (Romania), teaching Music History in the Department of Musicology. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree (department of Musicology, 2003), then earned her Master's degree (department of Musicological Syntheses, 2005) and her Doctor's degree (in Musical Stylistics, with a thesis entitled Analytical Perspectives on the Opera-Oratorio "Manole the Craftsman" by Sigismund Toduţă, 2008, under the professional supervision of academician Cornel Ţăranu, Professor, Ph.D.) at the same institution. Her musicological interests include analytical aspects of the works of Romanian composers, performing arts and the mythology music binomial. She is currently director of a research grant concerning the Myth of Orpheus across the Ages.

Stefan Östersjö was born in 1967, is one of the most prominent soloists within new music in Sweden. Since his debut CD (Swedish Grammy in 1997) he has recorded extensively and toured Europe, the US and Asia. Since 2005 he has also been engaged in a series of projects with the objective of merging Western Art Music to Extra-European traditions, most notably in the Swedish-Vietnamese project The Six Tones, with master musicians Ngo Tra My, and Nguyen Thanh Thuy. As a soloist he has cooperated with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Peter Eötvös, Pierre André Valade, Mario Venzago, Franck Ollu, Andrew Manze and Tuomas Ollila.

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Alex Reuben makes dance movies for the cinema. He has a background as a DJ and in art and design. Reuben’s road movie, ROUTES (ACE, 2008), was nominated in the ‘Top 20 Movies of the Decade’ (Geoff Andrew, BFI/Time Out). QUE PASA (2001) won a Choreographic Captures prize and LINE DANCE (CH4 TV/ACE/MJW, 2005) was nominated for Best British Short Film. Reuben was formerly Head of Post Graduate Dance for the Screen at London Contemporary Dance School and is a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London. NEWSREEL 1 (ACE) is currently on digital cinema release.

Michael Picknett is a composer and researcher specialising in collaborative practices in music and a. Since 2005 he has composed music for many

different media (dance, theatre, concert works and opera), working extensively throughout Europe. He has notably worked with: ROH2, Glyndebourne, Welsh

National Opera, and EDge 09. He is currently engaged in practice-led research for a Doctorate in Music Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he is researching Devised Music. He recently directed

Apologetics, a stage setting of his concert works, at the Barbican Centre.

Jeremy Peyton-Jones is a composer with a particular interest in the intersection between music / theatre / performance / live art and other time based media. He studied at Dartington College of Arts and Goldsmiths and in the 1970’s worked with John Cage and Christian Wolff. His work has been performed across the UK, Europe, Australia and North America and is regularly broadcast in the USA, Australia and the UK. Commissions include works for The Balanescu Quartet, The Harmonie Band, a chamber opera for The Royal Opera House's Garden Venture, the Australian contemporary music ensemble Topology and BBC Radio 3. Recently he has written works for the Canadian electric guitarist Tim Brady, harpsichordist Jane Chapman and the keyboard duo Keynote+. In 2002 he was composer in residence at the Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane. He is conductor and artistic director of the ensemble Regular Music II, with whom he has recorded two albums and performed across the UK, at European festivals and on BBC Radio 3. The ensemble was voted among the top 18 international contemporary music ensembles by Gramophone Magazine and their CD North South East West was voted "Best Modern Composition CD" by The Wire in 1996.Two years spent programming new music and live performance at the Midland Group Arts Centre in Nottingham brought him into contact with experimental live art, theatre and dance companies and he subsequently worked collaboratively with several theatre companies writing scores for the seminal A Place in Europe for Impact Theatre Cooperative, large-scale site-specific works for Lumiere & Son Theatre Company, several collaborations with director Pete Brooks and Insomniac Productions. He has worked closely with writers setting texts by Claire MacDonald, Russell Hoban, Kathy Acker, David Gale, Tim Etchells and Deborah Levy.  His current music theatre project is Against Oblivion, part 1 of which was premiered at Toynbee Studios in 2007 and part 2 at the Tête á Tête Opera Festival in 2009.

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Kelvin Thomson is a professional musician with extensive experience as music director, vocal coach, session musician (piano/keyboards), composer

and arranger. London Contemporary Chamber Orchestra recorded Prelude and Interlude from Cha tig Mor in Dec 2010 and nominated the piece for a

British Composer Award 2011 in the Making Music category. Incidental music for Abhishek Majumdar’s play An Arrangement of Shoes – Indian premiere Bangalore November 2011. Music Director: Celtic Woman USA

tour (2006) and Riverdance Europe and Russia (2004-5). Assistant Conductor: Southwark Playhouse’s production of John Adams’ Ceiling/Sky

at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (1999) and Opera Omaha’s (USA) world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem Variations (1996).

Nefeli Tsiouiti is a choreographer and dancer, experienced in contemporary, and hip-hop/break-dance and dance theatre. She is a dancer in Element Dance Company, March Performance Group, The Soul Superior Bgirl Crew, and choreographer of Scope Dance Theatre. She is also an Associate Lecturer of Choreography at Middlesex University.

Nguyen Thanh Thuy studied at the Hanoi National Academy of Music where she received her diploma in 1998, followed by a Master of Arts at the Institute of Vietnamese Folklore in 2002. Nguyen Thanh Thuy has recorded several CD’s as soloist with orchestra and solo CDs with traditional and experimental music. Since 2009, she has been involved as a researcher in the international research project (re)thinking improvisation, as a collaboration between the Hanoi National Academy of Music and the Malmö Academy of Music. At present she is launching an artistic doctoral project at the Malmö Academy of Music concerned with gesture in traditional Vietnamese music.

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Shakti Zapata My experience encompasses an eclectic range of art forms: including choreography, theatre, teaching, performance art and film. I also have an extensive background as an Occupational Therapist in Spain (my mother country), where I devised art therapy for people with mental, physical and sensory disabilities. In 2006, I brought that experience to London and have been carving out a career as a performer, choreographer and teacher while studying an MA in Performance.

Marilyn Wyers is a pianist, dancer and body-based music performance educator. Her work involves the application of body-based learning and teaching experiences that encourage the combined growth of technical, creative and expressive skills to music performance studies in higher education and beyond. She has a special interest in performing contemporary classical music, contemporary dance and ballet. Marilyn is currently pursuing a PhD in music and sound-related movement at Goldsmiths.She is also a senior examiner for the International Baccalaureate Music Diploma Programme.

Mark Wraith was a principal soloist with Ballet Rambert under the direction of Christopher Bruce. He danced the title role in Pierrot Lunaire and principal roles in The Tempset and Les Noces. He trained at The Australian Ballet School and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he also taught movement for singers. He has worked abroad as a performer and teacher including The Sydney Dance Company, The Lindsay Kemp Company in Italy, The Fires of London, and Grupo Madera in Venezuela, where he taught movement for musicians. He has worked as an opera repetiteur (pianist) at The Royal Opera, and also played for ballet classes.

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...Thank YouA special thank you to all the people who have contributed to

the conference. In particular Brian Rodgers - technical director, Kremena Velinova - technical assistant, Mo Ansari -

photographer, Minna Nygren - video recording.

We hope that this will be the first of many Composer/Choreographer/Performer Collaboration Conferences and we

look forward to welcoming you back in 2013.

The Conference Committee

www.gold.ac.uk/musicwww.music.sas.ac.uk