Dr Mary Bellamy

Biography

I studied for my Masters degree in composition with Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and for my PhD with George Nicholson at the University of Sheffield, completing this in 2003.

My pieces have been performed at many msuic festival in the UK including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hoxton New Music Days, State of the Nation, South Bank 's Inventions Days and the BMIC Cutting Edge Concert Series, as well as at many individual concerts. Performances have been given by leading contemporary music ensembles and soloists such as the London Sinfonietta, The Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Composers Ensemble, Ensemble Expose, Stephen Gutman and Daan Vandewalle. My music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and has also received performances outside the UK.

Commissions include those from the London Sinfonietta, the Composers Ensemble, Stephen Gutman, Suono Mobile and Christopher Redgate. Constellations (1999) commissioned and recorded by the Composers Ensemble is available on NMC CD 'The Hoxton Thirteen'.

Awards include an Arts Council International Fellowship Award in 2004. Collaborative sound and video work created with Glasgow based video artist Tara Beall has been shown at ION 's 'alla Soglia del Corto' Competition in conjunction with the Venice Film Festival, 2006, at Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery, New York, 2006 and at the Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, 2007.

Forthcoming projects include:

Christopher Redgate/Kreutzer String Quartet

New work

Ian Buckle/Richard Casey piano duo

New work

Scores are available at the British Music Information Centre, www.bmic.co.uk

Residencies/Awards:

Dartington International Summer School Advanced Composition Course 1998

Unidee in Residence International Programme, Pistoletto Foundation, Italy, July-October 2004: Composer in Residence, Arts Council of England International Fellowship Award

Brooklyn Fire Proof studio residency, New York, 2006

Participation funded by the Arts Council of England. April 2006.

Ostrava New Music Days, 2007

Professional Associations:

British Music Information Centre Contemporary Voices scheme

Research & Scholarship

Research in acoustic composition: In my music I explore the use of texture and timbre, in particular the perception of simultaneous and successive levels of differing textural activity and the layering and juxtaposition of musical materials, systematically explored through timbre, rhythm, pitch and instrumentation. Through creating shifts between differing levels of textural, timbral and rhythmic activity, I aim to create non-developmental and non- narrative structural forms in which material is explored through process' of repetition and variation.

A further research interest lies in the nature of the creative process, how this can be negotiated and fostered between composer and performer and the subsequent influence this can have on the musical fabric of a work. This addresses questions of authorship and composer/performer interaction in the creative process, as well as the nature of collaboration as examined through empirical study.

My interests in this field have led to collaborative work with a video artist and the creation of a number of sound and video installations. Two research areas are explored through this work. The first is the creative process fostered between artists developing work in close collaboration, and the ability for the finished work to reflect the working process. The second addresses such questions as: How can new music be placed in contexts other than that of the concert hall? How is its reception different when it is placed in these new contexts? Is the act of composition different when composing for a space other than that of the concert hall and in conjunction with another art form? As well as these aesthetic questions, this work also engages with practical research into the use of multiple channels of video and audio and methods of synchronising these.

Areas for Research Supervision

Composition (instrumental).

Music and the allied arts, primarily music/sound with video, but also music and theatre, music and text.

Composition through composer/performer collaboration: Empirical study of interactive creative process'.