Dr Rupert Till

Biography

Dr Rupert Till is a composer, musicologist and musician. Having studied composition with Gavin Bryars, Katharine Norman and George Nicholson, he is now a member of staff at the University of Huddersfield. A founder member of the Abstract Film Orchestra and electronica group Chillage People, he continues to be an active composer and musician, based in the north of England.

Research & Scholarship

He is a composer with experience of composing and performing in many styles and formats. This has included:

• Playing bass and composing for jazz band the Gothic Whale Ensemble in the Edinburgh Festival
• Composing music for dance for a number of years for contemporary dance company Whoopee Stomp, including being commissioned by the arts council for the piece ‘Bored’.
• Experimental music composition and performance
• Writing music and/or creating the sound design for films Wheeze, The Dancer and Massacre
• Creating electronic remixes, most notably for Richard Kirk of Cabaret Volaire

He is currently a member of ambient electronica group the Chillage People. They have performed and recorded internationally, recent highlights including:

• Dr. Whooo on Unity Dub’s Voyage into Paradise CD released on Liquid Sound Design Records, UK.
• Beauty on Ambient Planet volume 1 released on Vagalume records, Brasil, distributed by Ultimae records, France.
• Performing a 2 hour set to around 2000 people at the Boom festival, which saw 20,000 people attending in the Portuguese mountains.

He is interested in the interaction of postmodernity, music and culture and has written papers on

• Club Culture as a new performance tradition
• Alternative worship, the impact of postmodernity on the Christian church
• Historical perspectives towards the Britpop phenomenon
• Authenticity and club culture
• The history of the appropriation of Black musical traditions by white musicians

He is an experienced sound engineer and producer, as well as a DJ.

He is interested in creative uses of spatialisation, and microphone and loudspeaker design, and is pursuing patent applications for new kinds of microphone and loudspeaker as well as for a new form of synthesis.

At present he is working on a trance remix for Planet Zogg records, and a studio arrangement of a 2000 year old Buddhist Mantra.

Research Outputs

Areas for Research Supervision

Composition;

Popular Musicology;

Music and Religion;

Religion and Popular Music;

Postmodernity, reconstruction, reenchantment, liquidity and the post/enlightenment/post-historical, and their relation to music; music and meaning;

Archaeoacoustics;

Music and the Neolithic;

Club cultures and electronic dance music.