Music and Music Technology News

The University Music department is offering two organ scholarships in 2011-12 in conjunction with its ecclesiastical partners, Wakefield Cathedral and the Catholic Diocese of Leeds.  These are:

• The University of Huddersfield / Wakefield Cathedral scholarship: worth £2,000 per annum
•  The University of Huddersfield / Catholic Diocese of Leeds scholarship, tenable at St Patrick’s RC Church, Huddersfield: worth £1,000 per annum

 In 2012-13 there will be the opportunity to apply for an additional scholarship at Leeds Cathedral:

• The University of Huddersfield / Leeds Cathedral scholarship – worth £2,250 per annum

The closing date for submission of applications is 28 February 2011 and auditions take place in Huddersfield on 23 March 2011.  To apply, submit your UCAS application and then contact Dr Graham Cummings, University Organist (g.h.cummings@hud.ac.uk) with your scholarship application. 

You can also find out more about Wakefield and Leeds Cathedrals and St Patrick’s Church by visiting their websites at:

www.wakefieldcathedral.org.uk/Music/music.html

www.dioceseofleedsmusic.org.uk/leeds_cathedral_choirs/scholarships.php

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Aaron Cassidy, Senior Lecturer in Composition, has been commissioned to write a new work for EXAUDI as part of the PRS for Music Foundation New Music 20×12 programme.  EXAUDI, who will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2012, is one of Britain’s leading contemporary music ensembles, with an international presence at the cutting edge of new music. Aaron will be working with the ensemble to generate new sounds for the human voice by exploring experimental approaches to vocal production.

New Music 20×12 is a UK wide programme which consists of twenty new works, each lasting 12 minutes, which have been commissioned to feature centre stage of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Each commission will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and tour the UK, enabling as many people as possible to enjoy new music as part of our celebrations of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

New Music 20×12 is an independent project initiated by Jillian Barker and David Cohen, and is delivered by PRS for Music Foundation in partnership with the BBC, London 2012 Organising Committee and Sound and Music, and is supported by Arts Council England, John S. Cohen Foundation, Creative Scotland, PRS for Music Foundation, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, Incorporated Society of Musicians, Musicians Benevolent Fund, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, RVW Trust, Charlotte and Dennis Stevenson, Tolkien Trust, The Bliss Trust, Finzi Trust, John and Ann Tusa, Lilian Slowe, John Wates Charitable Trust and Richard Walduck.

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Clare Wilkinson (mezzo soprano) with members of the Rose Consort of Viols (directed by JB)

playing viols, harpsichord, organ and lute

Songs by Byrd and Dowland, a virtuosic embellished motet, Italian instrumental pieces and flamboyant divisions: this programme demonstrates the extraordinary skill that Renaissance singers and players brought to the art of performance. 

Clare Wilkinson has sung in the Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Royal Albert Hall, the Theatre des Champs Elysées and the Lincoln Center. Born in Manchester into a family of musicians, Clare gave her first professional concert at the age of seventeen with Musica Antiqua of London. She went on to read Classics with a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, followed by postgraduate vocal studies at Trinity College of Music, London, where she won numerous prizes. In 2004 Clare worked for the first time with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and has since performed all the major works of Bach, and much other repertoire, under his baton. Clare also enjoys staged work; she is a member of I Fagiolini and with them was part of the ‘secret theatre’ project The Full Monteverdi. Other roles include Galatea in both Handel’s Acis and Galatea and his Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, Second Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Zinnia in Chabrier’s L’Etoile. Perhaps most notable of her numerous CDs are the Gramophone award-winning Messiah and the St Matthew Passion with The Dunedin Consort.            

www.clarewilkinsonmezzo.co.uk

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Rose Consort of Viols with Clare Wilkinson (mezzo soprano) and University Chamber Choir (directed by JB)

Byrd’s unsurpassed Mass for four voices performed tonight in an unusual way with solo and choral voices joined by viol consort, together with English Renaissance music for Christmas: songs, anthems and instrumental music. 

The Rose Consort of Viols performs extensively throughout Britain and the continent of Europe, appears regularly on the BBC and in the major London concert halls, and has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings for Amon Ra, Woodmansterne and Naxos.  The Consort’s CDs for Naxos include an anthology of Elizabethan Consort Music in addition to those of Byrd, Dowland, Gibbons, Jenkins, Lawes, Tomkins and Purcell (selected by The Sunday Times as the best available version) previously released.  More recently the Rose Consort has issued CDs of instrumental music by the Ferraboscos (father and son) and John Ward on the German label cpo and a recording with Clare Wilkinson of music by Tallis, Tye, Byrd and Tomkins on the Deux-Elles label.

www.roseconsort.co.uk   

Friday 3 December – Morning

Clare Wilkinson will be leading a workshop on singing early music with music students.

Alison Crum (President of the Viola da Gamba Society of Great Britain and author of Play the Viol) is offering advice and guidance to any student viol players. 

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BMus(Hons) Graduate and PGCE music student Matthew Stimpson has been honoured by Classic FM, the UK’s largest national commercial radio station, at its 12th annual Music Teacher of the Year Awards.

Matthew Stimpson of Beckfoot School, Bingley, West Yorkshire was presented with the Secondary School Music Teacher of the Year Award on stage at the Music for Youth School Prom Concerts in front of thousands of people at the Royal Albert Hall this week. Matthew was given the Award by Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.

Matt graduated from Music BMus(Hons) in 2003 and went on to complete his teacher training PGCE in secondary Music at the University of Huddersfield.  He has been working at Beckfoot School in Bingley since September 2004. He started working as an NQT and quickly realised he’d made the right career choice as he loves working with young people, and seeing what they can achieve.

In September 2005 Matt was appointed Head of Music at Beckfoot, a role he is still passionate about today, coordinating the many musical ensembles the school has as well as overseeing around 200 instrumental lessons a week. Matthew is a regular at Music For Youth events and took the school’s Samba band to the Royal Albert Hall in 2008.

On winning the award Matt commented “When I received the phone call to say I’d won, I was incredibly shocked and extremely proud. Working with such fantastic students and staff every day, makes you strive to do your best at all times. It really is a wonderful honour to get this award for something I absolutely love doing”.

The Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year Awards seek to recognise and reward those teachers who have made a real difference to the musical life of their school and community. As part of the Award, Matthew will receive musical equipment from Yamaha and Avid Sibelius for his school.

The judges commented: “Having taught for 6 years, Matthew has taken the music at Beckfoot School to new heights. Apart from the wide-ranging ensembles and the great exam results, Matthew has encouraged music for all whilst still instilling in his students the importance of putting on a good show. His experience and expertise goes beyond just the school and its students but also influences trainee teachers who come to the school.”

Classic FM’s Managing Director Darren Henley said: “There can be a tendency for music teachers to be the unsung heroes of the music world, yet without them, many young people would not have music introduced into their childhoods in a structured way. Our Awards have been created to reward those music teachers for their work in instilling a passion for their subject into a new generation of music lovers – and none more so than Matthew.”

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The group, comprising undergraduates and postgraduates on the Music and Music Technology courses, are performing a few times during the upcoming Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

You can follow them at these times and venues:

Friday 19 November -12.00pm at Huddersfield Train Station

Alvin Curran – Ear-Training (also featuring Dr David Milsom)

Friday 19 November - 5.00pm at Huddersfield Art Gallery

John Cage – Variations II

Wednesday 24 November - 7.30pm on the Huddersfield-Stalybridge train

Alvin Curran – Take the Cage Train

Thursday 25 November - 7.30pm at the Lawrence Batley Theatre

John Cage – Ryoanji (with Joelle Leandre on bass, who commissioned the work)

Watch out also for interviews with ensemble leader Philip Thomas in the Independent, Times and Examiner in the next few days. 

Philip himself features as a solo artist on Saturday 20 November – he takes on a marathon 12-hour performance of John Cage’s Music for Piano 4-84 from 12 noon to 12 midnight in Huddersfield Art Gallery. 

Interviews with me about these events coming up in the Independent (probably rubbish as Ivan Hewitt sounded as disinterested as possible) and the Times (hopefully much better interview) and the glorious Huddersfield Examiner.

Over 120 students turned out for the ‘informal’ chat with renowned music producers Charlie Russell and Brad Spence. They are well known for their individual work with artists including Radiohead, Coldplay and Madonna, but most recently for their collaboration with Jamiroquai, on forthcoming album ‘Rock Dust Light Star.’

The pair, who are also songwriters and run their own publishing company, answered questions to students from across the music department and gave advice about breaking into the music industry. They urged those attending to make the most of University, and said: “Do everything that you are required to do, a little bit better than you are required to do it, with a smile on your face.”

The chat included tales from inside the studio with acts such as Stereophonics, as well as the more technical side of their work.

Fred Hollingsworth, currently in his second year of studying Music Technology and Audio Systems, said that the talk proved useful: “To be honest I went on a whim, but I’m very glad I did. It was very helpful with regards to my course, especially my worries about finding a placement next year.”

The duo are currently working on Lucie Silvas’ new album and revealed they will be working with Jamiroquai front man Jay Kay in the near future.

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Over 3 weekends in May, the edges ensemble has performed 31 works, by 15 composers, over 22 hours worth of concerts, all at the Site Gallery, Sheffield as part of the exhibition of art books by Sol LeWitt, funded by Arts Council, England. They have rehearsed and performed with composers from Switzerland, Germany and the UK, as well as having composed numerous works themselves for the exhibition. The composers with whom they have worked (Manfred Werder, Gerhard Staebler, Kunsu Shim and John Lely) have spoken of the high standard, commitment, intelligence and creativity of the ensemble and have repeated time and again words of praise for their work.

The exhibition and performances were supported by the Research Group for Artists Publications (RGAP), the Site Gallery and Sheffield Hallam University (Fine Art department).

The edges ensemble was established by Dr. Philip Thomas in 2006 to perform classic and new experimental music, both notated and improvised, often featuring text and graphic scores. Since then they have performed concerts of English and American experimental music, at hcmf 2007 performing music by Fred Frith with the composer, and have worked with leading experimentalist Christian Wolff on the occasion of his being awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Huddersfield. They have recently recorded a new work by James Saunders for the lable 'another timbre'.

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The concept of starting your own record label is a dream for many music students, yet two University of Huddersfield Music BMus students, Mike Beszant and Robert Webb are making that dream a reality.

BEZEB entertainment has been just a concept throughout their three year degree, but now they have turned it into a successful business using the ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ method of promoting and selling the artists they have signed, and organising gigs to showcase the Huddersfield talent they have on their books. With the knowledge from their music media and markets modules they have been able to see the trends of file sharing and the popularity of Spotify and used this to their advantage by allowing users to determine how much they feel each album is worth and then paying what they would like to all through the BEZEB website.

The friendly attitude they have towards their label being ‘about the music and not just the money’ surprises many of the bands who hire the space to practise or record using the professional services of BEZEB and with the response of ‘we will sign anything as long as it’s good’ gives hope to many unsigned bands and undergraduate students looking for their break. Upcoming band The Moot has already commented on the duos professionalism saying ‘the best recording experience we’ve ever had’.

BEZEB hope to provide students with the opportunity to experience the music industry from both sides, band and business, and have already employed two first year students to assist with PR, marketing, interviews and technical aspects of gigging and are already looking for more students to assist with promotion of the gigs.

BEZEB entertainment looks to already be taking the local music circuit by storm and ambitions of nationwide expansion ensures BEZEB is a name set to shake up the music industry.

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This is an opportunity for an aspiring choral conductor to undertake the MMus degree, specialising in Performance and specifically as a conductor, singer or keyboard player, whilst undertaking regular work with Huddersfield Choral Society, under the supervision of the Chorus Master, Joseph Cullen.  If you’re successfully, you’ll take sectional rehearsals and assist with preparatory work, and have the opportunity to observe and work with visiting conductors.  The 2010-11 season includes performances of the Verdi Requiem conducted by Vasily Petrenko, Messiah under Jane Glover, Stravinsky’s Symphony or Psalms with Harvey Messages, and Martyn Brabbins conducting the Bruckner E minor Mass and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius.

This year’s recipient, Andrew King, is full of praise for the scheme.  As an undergraduate, Andy sang with the Choral Society, performing Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony.  He decided to continue his studies and now takes choral conducting with Joseph Cullen and singing with Paul Wade. 

By the end of his tenure in June, under Joseph Cullen’s watchful eye Andy will have worked on Christmas carols, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, Messiah and pieces for the Choral’s Gala Concert.  He has attended rehearsals throughout the year – the Choral only break briefly over the summer months because of their concert commitments – and has sat in on the visiting conductors’ piano rehearsals and final orchestral rehearsals.  “The Choir is very receptive, kind and generous with their patience”, observes Andy.  “They are eager to work hard and always give positive feedback”.

Rehearsals take place every Friday night at Greenhead College between 7.30pm and 9.30pm.  And performances can be with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Camerata or the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

“The tutelage is excellent – the opportunity to study with someone like Joseph Cullen – who has conducted at Winchester, Westminster Cathedral and is currently choral master with the London Symphony Chorus – is invaluable experience.”

So if you are planning on taking an MMus and have ambitions to conduct one of the country’s leading choral groups, why not apply for the post of Choral Conducting Scholar at the University of Huddersfield? 

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The Man and Men, a new opera composed by final-year composition undergraduate Joshua Goodman, is to receive its premiere at the famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. The piece is being produced by North of England Concert Theatre, a new regional music theatre company set up by Joshua, Stephanie Gregg (final year, BMus (Hons) Creative Music Technology) and Ema Walton, who graduated last year with a BMus (Hons) in Music. The company will be working over the coming years to give a platform for emerging artists working in music theatre to showcase their work – starting with Joshua’s own graduation piece, an opera for soprano and five players.

The opera’s libretto has been penned by Tom Riley, also on the Creative Music Technology course, and is a modern examination of masculinity in six verse tableaux. Joshua describes the work as a cross between a staged song-cycle and a ballet:

“When the noises of the world dissolve into a moment’s silence there comes a music which is clear and realised. In my opera, I tell the story – although there is no real story as such – of The Man, who is juggling the noises of his world to find that clarity. The result is a fragmented realm of codified intimacy, shadowed by a slowly unfolding, shimmering understanding of humanity, sexuality and identity. Although painful at times, our hero’s journey eventually leads to a dénouement that is devastating in its scale and comforting in its closeness.”

The University of Huddersfield’s Business Mine awarded a proof of concept grant of £1,000 to the project.  The rest of the budget has been sourced from private investment and charitable donations. On such a shoe-string budget however, there is always space for further contribution, and the team welcome interest from sponsors, donors and investors. There are also still vacancies for performers – players of the Double Bass and Piano are particularly invited to register their interest. You can contact the production at northofengland@concert-theatre.org

The opera runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 5 – 31st August 2010, venue TBA. Check back on this site for updates on the production’s progress, rehearsal footage and more information on how you get involved, lend a hand or simply watch it all unfold. 

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The Composition programme provides numerous opportunities for students to hear their work performed by professional performers of international renown.  This year’s guests have included EXAUDI vocal ensemble, the cellist Neil Heyde, recorder player Jeremias Schwarzer, pianist Mark Knoop, cellist Séverine Ballon, and clarinettist Richard Haynes, as well as the ELISION ensemble, who have been the Ensemble-in-Residence for the 2009-10 academic year.  The undergraduate and postgraduate composition students write pieces specifically for these performances and workshops.

'The workshop with Neil Heyde, in which my composition for Cello was performed, was an invaluable experience which gave me a far better understanding of the research I had done on the instrument before hand. Helpful advice was given on how notation can be improved from a performer's perspective, and the feedback was not only informative but also increased my confidence as a composer.'

David Fenn, Second Year Intermediate Composition Student.

'I found my experiences with the visiting professional performers very helpful, as before University I hadn't had much opportunity to talk with professionals, let alone write a piece for them.The workshops are really good as the feedback given has taught me how to think in greater detail about what I am writing and given me the opportunity to hear my pieces played by the best possible musicians.'

Rob Allen, Second Year, Creative Music Technology

'Talking to professional players in the workshops provides practical information about the possibilities when writing for various ensembles. The opportunity to hear my work performed was both exciting and very beneficial; I now have a greater understanding of why some of my ideas were successful and how I might approach writing future pieces. Knowing that I was writing for an ensemble of highly-skilled musicians was also a cue to experiment with concepts and techniques on paper with the chance to discover how they transferred into live performance.'

Jon Bates, Second Year, Creative Music Technology

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Take a look at part of the performance and an interview with Professor John Bryan>>

The Spring term finale concert was a performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers.  The director of this performance, Professor John Bryan, writes:

"Some 85 students have been working since Christmas preparing for a performance to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of this amazing piece of music.  The performance is in St Paul's on Thursday 18 March at 7.30 pm and I very much hope you will be able to join us.

The performance of this piece requires a good deal of scholarly preparation and understanding, so we are pleased that it forms a component of the School of Music, Humanities and Media's Research Festival.  We have also integrated it into the core curriculum for first year BMus students, so this is a good example of research and learning through practice.  The students have found it stimulating and intellectually and musically challenging.

The performance also features a Baroque Ensemble of instrumentalists, many of them specialists from all over the UK, and one of the tenor soloists is Kevin Kyle, who graduated from our BMus with 1st class honours in the late 1990s, and made his Proms debut with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in 2005."

Take a look at part of the performance and an interview with Professor John Bryan>>

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In March, former student and currently Pianist in Residence, Jonathan Fisher, joins the University Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No 2 in Eb.  Also in the programme was the Three Dance Episodes from Aaron Copland’s Rodeo and Ravel’s orchestration of Musorgsky’s classic Pictures at an Exhibition. 

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New member of staff Dr David Milsom has joined the Music Department from the University of Leeds.  David is a Sheffield lad, attending Birkdale School and then going on to Sheffield University to take his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, staying on there to take his doctorate.

He plays the violin – and sometimes the viola – and will be contributing fully to the department’s performance courses, both as a string player and as a seasoned performer.  He will teach on the performance studies, historical performance and musicology modules and also plans to hold string sectionals and – of course – join the violins in the University Symphony Orchestra.  He’ll form a string ensemble to broaden our players’ repertoire and to give them experience and confidence. 

Before he came to Huddersfield, David was a researcher at Leeds University. David’s research involved recording about twenty major pieces of repertoire in innovative historically-informed ways. Whilst at Leeds, he also put LUCHIP (Leeds University Centre for Historically Informed Performance) on the map, giving many chamber music recitals on period instruments and organising conferences. David will travel to Manchester, Bangor and Cardiiff with LUCHIP in the next few months, giving recitals and master-classes in 19^th Century performance, having already performed in Bristol and Leeds last year. In previous years he has also been invited to give talks at a variety of places including Stanford University, USA and a short residency in Estonia.  He has promised that LUCHIP will appear at Huddersfield in our next concerts season.  

Performing with LUCHIP supports David’s first love – his research into historical performance practices of the  19^th and early 20^th centuries.  He focusses on the quite distinctive style of those periods, features of which include prounounced tempo flexibility and portamento – approaches to playing which are no longer fashionable amongst instrumentalists or singers.  Listen to examples of early recordings to hear what would seem to the modern ear, a very mannered style of performance.  David gathers his evidence from early editions of string music, with its markings and fingerings, from writings on theoretical style and recordings of players born as early as the 1830s.

To broaden understanding of performance practices over the past 100 years, David is currently engaged in writing an A-Z of string players who made recordings for Naxos, a mammoth undertaking which will include entries on up to 300 performers.  Naxos will also issue recordings to go with his book.

Back in Sheffield, David, with his wife - a pianist and organist whom he met at as a postgraduate student in Sheffield - friends and colleagues, runs a ‘small’ (with approximately 100 pupils!) private music school.  “I am a deeply committed to instrumental teaching and learning at all levels and feel particularly strongly that pupils should be given a good basic grounding”, he says.  “That way, when they come to places like Huddersfield, they are well prepared for the many exciting performance opportunities we have to offer.” Whilst David is now primarily centred on his teaching and research at Huddersfield, he remains passionate about music education at all levels, and encouraging musicianship in students of all ages.

In his vain attempt to find a hobby outside music, David sings in Ranmoor Church Choir, Sheffield, with whom he will go to Durham Cathedral over the summer when they take up a short residency at the Cathedral.  He’s also a good friend of fellow-steel city resident Philip Thomas, who has vowed to re-introduce him to contemporary performance in the coming months.  Watch out for the concerts!

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University of Huddersfield Music Technology graduate Matthew Wilcock has set up his own company ‘Zelig Sound’. Through this company and his vast experience as a sound recorder, sound editor, dubbing mixer and sound designer, he was given the opportunity to do the sound design for the BAFTAs BBC broadcast idents. He is also currently working on all the sound for the A/Vs, interactives, and soundscapes for the new Chopin Museum launch in Warsaw.

When asked about how he got the BAFTA contract, Matthew replied ‘This is one of the hardest parts of the work. A little bit of luck, lots of hard work’

‘What I learnt on my degree helped me...The sound theory and Max/MSP has served me well and that could be one thing, that in the future, separates us from other sound companies. The sound design and film music theory/context and practical studies, under Elizabeth Dobson, has been really useful. Computer composition studies informed my basic composition practices and developed my knowledge of fundamental ideas of sound/music composition, which is essential for our work. I studied silence with Aaron Cassidy in my final which was extremely valuable. Theory informs practice in a large way and practice makes work.  I have also kept in touch with a few of my tutors since I graduated, which has been helpful.’

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The University of Huddersfield Music Department recently played host to Rod Franks, Principal Trumpet with the London Symphony Orchestra.  Rod, who  was a student at the University in the early 1970s as a 15 year old, returned to pass on his knowledge and expertise to today’s students.  His audience – and especially the trumpeters – hung on to his every word.  He mixed tales of his life as a brass professional with words of wisdom on technique and repertoire, at one point quizzing the students on their knowledge of brass repertoire – refusing to give them the answers but encouraging them to research in the library after the talk.  He impressed with the long list of the film soundtracks on which he had played – sometimes with his playing partner at the LSO, and erstwhile teacher, Maurice Murphy – and sometimes as lead principal.  These include Star Wars 1, 2 and 3 (the final three films), Four Weddings and Funeral, Notting Hill, Casino Royale, A Fish Called Wanda and Blue Planet.  The brass players will be hoping his advice will rub off when they play in the upcoming University Symphony Orchestra concert later in March, which features the Ravel orchestration of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Copland’s Rodeo.

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Music Technology and Popular Music 2nd year student Ben Wilson, is setting up a successful career for himself in the world of dance music.  As Bonn Lewis (www.myspace.com/bonnlewis), he is about to release this third dance track – Role Reversal – on the Nightrain Music label. 

Ben – or Bonn – doesn’t tie himself down to one specific style – although he is grounded in electronic dance music – he also flirts with uplifting melodic trance, progressive and big room electro.

As a DJ Bonn has a residency at all Rusty Hat promoted events in the UK.  As a musician he’s known for his drumming in the electro-folk group Black Diamond Bay – and also for his guitar playing and song writing in the funk hip hop group Freyed Knot.

Ben also finds time away from his studies to work as a sound engineer for Sinoptic Music.

Listen to some Bonn Lewis

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Written by Matt Nash, 2nd Year Student in Television Production -  in association with First Tier News

HELO, the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra, based in the University of Huddersfield Music Department, is a laptop based orchestra that allows the University’s students to explore the various possibilities of using the laptop as an everyday instrument. HELO is run by PHD research student and part time lecturer Scott Hewitt, who started the Orchestra as part of his PHD research but also because of a genuine interest in the area itself.

As well as indulging Scott’s interest, the orchestra provides an opportunity for more technical-based students in the department to explore performance and group performance more often. The University of Huddersfield supports HELO by giving the ensemble the resources they need, both to practise and to perform at various locations. Laptop Orchestra is a fluid term that describes various ensembles. HELO is slightly different because its players, a mixture of under- and postgraduate students, run on a one player to one laptop basis, with up to as many as 15 players to 15 laptops.

The ensemble performs twice a year as an assessed part of the music course, but also performs at a variety of festivals including The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Revolutionaries Project, and over the last summer, the Sound and Music, Expo Leeds which is a large international music festival.

The ensemble is collaborating with another Laptop ensemble based in Manchester called MMULE (Manchester Metropolitan University Laptop Ensemble), and more collaborations with other organisations are in the works.

As the ‘Experimental’ tag suggests, the ensemble is ever changing, with students leaving in their final year, and new students joining in their first. This creates a very different sounding orchestra every year, with the influence of new members changing the ensemble's direction and initiating fresh sounds. Scott’s next project is The Weaker Speakers which is due to start in March.

For more information on the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra follow this link:

helo.ablelemon.co.uk/doku.php/start

www.inclusiveimprov.co.uk/doku.php

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Everybody knows what a piano sounds like. But when they listen to the first CD released by the University of Huddersfield's new record label they will have to change their tune.

Sebastian Berweck (pictured right), renowned throughout Europe as a performer of daring contemporary compositions that transform the piano's sound and capabilities, is a PhD student within the Music Department.  And he is the soloist on extended piano, the first disc to be released by Huddersfield Contemporary Records, which is a collaboration between the University's Computing and Library Services and its Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM).

Liza Lim, who is Professor of Composition and the Director of CeReNeM, explains that the object of the new label is the curation of work that has a connection to the University - such as compositions by staff, postgraduate students or visiting artists.  The aim is to release up to four discs a year.  The administrative aspects of the label are being handled by Computing and Library Services and one of its staff members, Mike Spikin, has designed the booklet for the first CD.

Sebastian Berweck, aged 38, was born in the Black Forest region of Germany.  Currently he divides his time between Berlin and Huddersfield, where he is in the second year of PhD study, having been drawn to the University by its facilities and its reputation in the field of new music.

The material on extended piano is the work of five composers and was recorded over the course of several years and in various locations.  The disc features a conventional piano, but a wide range of unusual or extended techniques, such as playing inside the instrument, plus electronic manipulation, creating sounds that are a constant surprise.

One piece, Recordame by Thomas Wenk, involves the use of a handheld cassette recorder - the soloist creates sounds and rhythmic patterns with the control buttons.  A composition by James Saunders, entitled #250904-r calls for the use of dictaphones and an electronic device called an e-bow.

The avant-garde sounds that emerge on the CD illustrate the length of the musical journey that Sebastian has taken since he began playing classical piano as a child, soon displaying immense talent.  But by his late teens he was increasingly drawn to contemporary music.  "I was finding things in it that I didn't find in the classical repertoire - perhaps it was the range and anger one has a 17-year-old!"

But as he became committed to the performance of contemporary music involving new technology, Sebastian became increasingly aware of the practical difficulties.  His PhD research examines the organisational difficulties of staging concerts of contemporary music and how they can be solved.

"The music business has existed in more or less the same way since the 18th century, but now we had electronics coming in and the business is not ready for them.  We didn�t have a historical precedent and it has led to a lot of trouble in concerts."

Sebastian Berwick photo credit Anika Neese

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Monty Adkins- work, the [60]Project, commissioned by the HCMF and published by empreintes DIGITALes in 2008 has been nominated for a Qwartz Award ().  No less than 1089 artists have participated in Qwartz 6.  The Professional and Official Juries listened blindly to the submissions of each artist.

The Official Jury is composed of four artistic personalities who listen to the 10th pre-nominations of the Professional Jury. Since the beginning of the Qwartz awards, over fifty professional have offered their expertise as members of the juries.    The Official Jury comprised:

• Alejandro Jodorowsky, President of the Jury - Director, La Montagne Sacré, El Topo, comic-illustrator with Moebius, co-founder of the performance group Panique
• Christophe -  French composer, Interpreter of the hits Aline, Les Mots Bleus
• Bernard Parmegiani - Electroacoustic composer and member of GRM (Groupe de Recherche Musicales]
• Patrice Renson - French composer, Poly-instrumentalist and arranger

The Professional Jury is composed of 7 to 10 experts from the music scene.  They listened to the 4077 tracks (441 albums) submitted in Qwartz 6 over 2 months.  For the first time this year, the jury is international

• Jocelyne Auzende - Commissioner for In Famous (France)
• Alain Brohard - In charge of arts initiatives and accompaniment at the Cave aux Poètes (France)
• Marek Choloniewski - Composer, Director of the Audio Art Festival and of the Studio of the Krakow Academy of Music (Poland)
• Jean-Marc Clogenson - Journalist, Octopus (France)
• Hubert Michel - Composer, host of the show Radio Phonogène (France)
• Damien Moreno - Journalist, Trax Magazine (France)
• Kevin Ringeval - Director of the Patchwork Festival and artistic consultant for the Réseau Printemps [Printemps de Bourges network](France).

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Maria Castro is a new lecturer in music technology with a passion for composition, sound design and moving image.

She graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London with a 1^st class BMus in Music in 2000, and then a PhD in Composition in 2006.

After working on various short films and documentaries, she became part of the Berlin Talent Campus where she was a finalist for her role in creating a musical score for a short film. In 2004 she was selected by David Holmes (who has composed the soundtrack for films such as "Oceans Eleven" or "Hunger") as one of the three finalists of the Score Competition (for composers and sound designers) that took place during the Berlin Film Festival. She had to create new soundtracks for three two-minute clips, which included an excerpt of a feature film ("Run Lola Run" by Tom Tykwer), the short animation film "Sterne" by Thomas Struck, and a Volkswagen promo clip.

After moving back to France and working on more short films and documentaries, she decided to apply for the lecturer role at the University of Huddersfield. "I had a good impression (of the university) during my interviews; this seemed like a very interesting department, I had some good feedback, it has a very good reputation".

"I like the student one-to-one based approached. I enjoy the British style of education". She has also lived in three different countries - "If you have experience in other countries, it is great to be able to bring that into your teaching and to the students"

She hopes to bring her passion for cinema knowledge and sound design to the university. She advises students who want to get into film and sound design to watch as many films as possible, and to listen to the soundtracks as well as thinking about collaboration and work experience.   "The more you put into your degree, the more you work, the more you're interested, the more you're going to get out of your degree".  

"It is a hard business, but if you are really passionate about it and take part of projects, film festivals, collaborations you will have a good start for your future."

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The artistic result of a unique collaboration between lecturer and student was screened at the Leeds International Film Festival in November.

Senior lecturer, Robin Kiteley (pictured right), teamed up with Music student Samuel Stocks (pictured far right) to produce an experimental moving-image piece that has already received critical acclaim at festivals around the world.

Carbon Dating Angels is the result of a three-month project which saw Robin and Sam leave their own realms of expertise to explore the medium of "screendance", in which processes of framing, editing and the capacity to manipulate time and space, are used as fundamental aspects of movement composition and choreography.  The eleven-minute film incorporates 1930s archive footage of x-ray techniques alongside Sam's musical and sonic interpretation and explores the reconfiguration of cinematic spaces and the bodies within them.

"The archive footage of the x-ray techniques inspired us to think about the ways in which these scientific processes were able to tell us new things about our bodies and new ways of looking at things," says Robin. "We then started thinking about applying these scientific processes to things which are currently 'unknowable', and came up with the idea of Carbon Dating Angels."

The project initially came about through Robin's involvement with the Artists Access to Art Colleges (AA2A) scheme, in which he was one of only four local artists to take part in the scheme's first year at Huddersfield. AA2A offers artists the opportunity to use the facilities of Higher Education institutions to undertake a period of research or realise a project.

"I was keen to collaborate with a music student or sound artist in order to achieve a final piece in which visual and audio elements were intimately related," explains Robin.  "It was important that Sam was very involved from the beginning, and I was lucky to find a student who shared my vision for the piece and who had a good understanding of what I wanted to achieve.  His creative input was key to the development of the film and we both influenced each other in terms of our working practices."

Says Sam: "To me, this project was an ideal opportunity to transfer some of my artistic aesthetic onto a new canvas, and exploring the realm of the supernatural and scientifically immeasurable in the form of video-art and "screendance" seemed to be a fitting way for us to represent these unseen forces in the universe.  I like to think of this film as perhaps a kind of representation of the cosmic dance which places some kind human order in a seemingly infinite and utterly chaotic universe of possibilities - or to perhaps make a comment on how far we humans really need to go in our scientific efforts to fathom existence and 'carbon date' the angels."

Adds Robin: "I've always had a keen interest in art, especially digital media, and have recently completed a part-time MA in Contemporary Fine Art Practice.  I wanted to explore this hybrid practice of "screendance", because it's something that I've never done before, and the movements in Carbon Dating Angels are all really controlled and precise, and there was something hypnotic about them that I wanted to capture."

The film has already been well-received at festivals around the world, including the namaTRE.ba 3 Video Exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Square Eyes Festival in the Netherlands, and is due to be screened at the International Video Dance Festival of Buenos Aires and the Leeds International Film Festival in November.

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CeReNeM staff and students in Stockholm

Rose Dodd, CeReNeM visiting research fellow, is curating a concert series over two nights in November for SEAMS at the Fylkingen Institute.  These concerts present recent Huddersfield research in an international context, with works by Rose Dodd, Huddersfield staff members Monty Adkins and Bryn Harrison, and Huddersfield students Adam Jansch, Ben Isaacs, and Sam Stocks, performed by pianist Kate Ledger, who recently completed her MMus in Contemporary Music Performance.   Rose will also present a guest lecture at KMH, Stockholm on 6 November about her compositional practice and will give a paper The Living Dolls of Electronica. Sonic Image in Electronic Music : the use of subversive text and narrative to expose gender dichotomy at the international conference 'Representing Gender in the Performing Arts� to be held at the University of Groningen November 12-13, 2009.

Monty Adkins in Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Rome

Monty Adkins, Reader in Music Technology and Director of Research for Music/Music Technology, continues to expand his international profile with a wide-ranging portfolio of activity:  25th Oct, premiere of new work commissioned by the Tsonami Festival in Buenos Aires; 3rd Nov, guest lecture on his research at the KMH Stockholm and on 10th Nov, his video-music work  Symbiont, originally commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2002, will be performed at EMUFEST di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy.

Aaron Cassidy listed in Grove Dictionary

Grove Music Online, one of the leading reference resources for music, has added an entry on the compositional work of Senior Lecturer Aaron Cassidy in its recent editorial update.  Subscribers to Oxford Music Online can access the article here.

Pierre Alexandre Tremblay releases two new CDs

Dr Tremblay releases two new albums of his music, both sharing his practice-based research interests in improvisation and electronics.

The first, entitled La rage, is a fifty minute suite for free jazz drummer and electronics. The piece, originally in 8 channel, has been remixed in 5.1 in the university's studios and is available as DVD-audio on the prestigious acousmatic label Empreinte DIGITALes, with Stefan Schneider on drums.

The second is the result of a duet session with American drummer/circuit-bender Rodrigo Constanzo. The album, entitled Drum and Bass and the Horse You Rode in on, is very unique in that it will be release in a very limited number of copies, all hand-made, before being made publicly available online later in the year.

Cassidy String Quartet in NYC

Aaron Cassidy's String Quartet (2002) was performed as part of the Moving Sounds Festival at Le Poisson Rouge by the JACK Quartet on 14 September, 2009, and received a favourable review in the New York Times.  The quartet will again feature the work at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and the Eastman School of Music in mid-October.  They recorded the work for a future commercial release during their Huddersfield residency in March 2009.

Cassidy is currently working on a new piece for the group commissioned by S�dwestrundfunk and the Donaueschinger Musiktage for performance in 2010.

Continued success for PhD student Richard Glover

PhD composer Richard Glover recently presented a paper at the 2nd International Conference on Music and Minimalism at the University of Missouri Kansas City.  The paper explored experiental aspects of the music of Phil Niblock; its positive reception has led to forthcoming publications on this composer and drone music.  Richard is currently composing a new work for MusikFabrik which will be premiered on November 28th at this year�s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and is also working towards a portrait concert of his music to be played by the Bozzini string quartet.

Liza Lim: Ochred String released on Neos CDs and recent performances

Liza Lim's Ochred String (2008) recorded by soloists of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra has come out on the Neos label (Neos 10931) as part of a 5-disc documentation of the 2008 Musica Viva Festival.  Liza recently produced the CD recording of her work City of Falling Angels (2007) for 12 percussionists with Ensemble XII and conductor Steve Schick at UCSD. The Navigator opera (2008) clocked up its third season at the Chekhov International Theatre Festival (Moscow) in June.  It will be presented in concert at the Opera Bastille on December 8 as part of the Festival d'Automne - Paris.  A recording of the opera from the ELISION Ensemble is in the works for release in 2010.  Pianist Marilyn Nonken has given several performances of the large-scale piano cycle The Four Seasons (after Cy Twombly) (2009) in Helsinki, New York and Woodstock this year with the next performance scheduled for 17 November at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, linked to an exhibition of Cy Twombly's work.

CeReNeM at ICMC

The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), held this year in Montreal, was buzzing with staff and students from the department�s Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM).  Mark and Julie Bokowiec performed their Suicided Voice, Monty Adkins gave a paper on the production and archival of the [60]project, Michael Clarke presented his analysis of Stockhausen�s use of octophonic loudspeakers setup, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Scott McLaughlin presented the conclusions of their Thinking Inside the Box project.

Cassidy performances in Thailand

Aaron Cassidy�s asphyxia for solo soprano saxophone was featured in a concert by the young American saxophonist Ryan Muncy at the 15th World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, on 9 July, 2009.  Muncy also presented the work in a concert with the Anubis Quartet at Bangkok�s Chulalongkorn University.

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An innovative rock band of the 1980s has hit the comeback trail - and staff and students at the University of Huddersfield joined them for the journey.

The Lotus Eaters were formed in 1982 - you might remember their 1984 album No Sense of Sin with its hit single The First Picture of You. University of Huddersfield students Greg Dembizky, Peter Chase, Laura Abbott, Amy Maclean and lecturer Elizabeth Dobson were recently given an insight into the world of the professional musician when they joined them in live performances in Liverpool.

Guitarist Jem Kelly, who is now pursuing an academic career at the University of Chichester, met Liz Dobson at an academic conference and asked her to arrange and record string parts for some of the newly-written songs. Liz quickly realised that this would be a great opportunity for some of Huddersfield's string playing students and she arranged for the recording to be done in the University's recording suites. The session was engineered by Huddersfield music technology graduate Adrian Hogg and Steve Power, Robbie Williams's onetime producer. The second part of the collaboration was an invitation to join the band on stage for a comeback gig in their home town of Liverpool, as part of a festival that included Simply Red and The Jools Holland Orchestra. They were then asked to play a live acoustic session with The Lotus Eaters broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside.

Working with The Lotus Eaters introduced some of tomorrow's professional musicians to the pressure and excitement of life at the top.

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