Students Join Top Composer for MSF Commission
RNCM students will work with renowned composer Jonathan Dove later this month to create a structured improvisation for voice and instruments inspired by Tania Kovats’ exhibition for Manchester Science Festival (MSF).
Starting with workshops at the Museum of Science and Industry on Saturday 25 October, the unique collaboration sees Jonathan and 12 RNCM students focus on Kovats’ sculptural art installation Evaporation, Cape Farewell’s Lovelock Art Commission that takes scientist James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory – that Earth is a self-regulating super-organism – as its starting point, exploring global, interconnected bodies of water. Following this, the students will present the finished piece, The Wave, through a series of free rolling public performances in the Museum’s main gallery space on Sunday 25 October.
Dr Michelle Castelletti, RNCM Artistic Director, said: ‘Jonathan Dove is recognised as one of the UK’s most prolific contemporary composers whose output includes opera, choral, orchestral and chamber music, plays and films.
‘Our partnership with Manchester Science Festival has been growing over the last couple of years, and it is exciting that MSF has created this special opportunity for RNCM students to work alongside him. It should be a wonderful educational experience for the singers and instrumentalists involved; something I am sure they will remember long after the event.’
As part of the collaboration there is also an opportunity to hear Jonathan and Tania In Conversation on Saturday 25 October, with Dr Simon Boxall from the University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre discussing how sculptural works relate to the seas and oceans, as well as James Lovelock’s Gaia principle.
Tania added: ‘I am very excited that Evaporation will receive its première at this year’s Manchester Science Festival, and I’m thrilled that it will also be a source of inspiration for this new composition. I cannot wait to hear and see how Jonathan together with the RNCM students respond musically to my sculptural work showing how art, music and science can work together.’
This special one-off project is one of three collaborations the RNCM and MSF are presenting this year. On Sunday 25 October the RNCM Family Day, which explores science and sound, takes place at the College between 11am and 4pm, and on Friday 30 October RNCM experts discuss the idea of colour and sound through the music of Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin ahead of that evening’s concert by the RNCM Symphony Orchestra.
6 October 2015
