Students Joined Top Composer for MSF Commission

RNCM students worked with renowned composer Jonathan Dove at the weekend 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 24 October, the unique collaboration saw Jonathan and students Rachael Allen, Gillian Blair, Samantha Clarke, Christopher Gibbons, Meera Maharaj, Graham McCusker, Matt Mears, Joseph Spratt, Janina Staub, Xiang Teng, Charlotte Trepess and Eleanor Watts 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 presented 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.’

Picture credit: Chris Foster/Museum of Science and Industry

26 October 2015