I’ve just had two weekends in Oxford at unrelated events within about 20 metres of each other. On 6-7 March I was an invited speaker at the Authorship in Music RMA Study Day hosted by the Faculty of Music and Wadham College. I spoke about game compositions, focusing on work by John Zorn, Christian Wolff, and some of my recent pieces. I’ve been investigating game studies recently with a view to exploring links between game design and composition and finding some striking parallels. The conference was really great, characterised by a very wide range of topics from 18th Century IPR through to sampling and authorship in performance.
Last weekend I returned to the Holywell Music Room, right next to the College, for the first performance of a new piece for [rout], commissioned by the audiograft festival. I’ve been in the Holywell a few times for performances, and it is one of the noisiest rooms when people have to move – all those wooden floors and seats. Sounds great! So my piece balances the creaks produced by shifting pressures on the floor (caused by rocking movements of the performers) with bowed and blown objects/instruments. There’s probably a joke in here about squeaky gates. I’ll post the video soon.
Leave a Reply