RNCM PRiSM | October News 2023

Dr Zakiya Leeming (PRiSM Artist and Producer in Residence) recently spoke on the national stage about her work with PRiSM and the impact of AI on music education and practice. ‘AI in music education – sounds of uncertainty’, was presented on 21 September by the Music Education Council (MEC) and hosted by chair Phil Castang.

The Webinar brought together experts across the field of AI and music to discuss the current and future challenges presented by AI to the wider artistic and educational environment. The panel offered perspectives from practicing artists, producers and charities and working with a range of AI tools.

Leeming was joined by panellists Benjamin Oliver, Associate Professor in Composition at the University of Southampton; Barry Farrimond Chuong, co-founder of Open Up Music; Tee Peters Wired4Music Programme Producer at Sound Connections; and Chat GPT.

In this PRiSM Blog, RNCM fourth-year undergraduate student Alexander Mouzouri (RNCM School of Composition) reflects upon his experience of participating in the PRiSM Collaboration with a Scientist Principal Study Elective. During the 2022-23 academic year, RNCM composers were brought in direct conversation with scientists based at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, working to address global inequalities, climate change, big data, and social and political injustice. Through observing how scientific research is conducted, they created new musical works informed by scientific ideas, curiosity, and methods.

Mouzouri collaborated with Dr Timothy Foster (Senior Lecturer in Water-Food Security, Infrastructure and Resilience), and created a new piece entitled Parallaxenreisen (2023) – a two-movement cycle for mixed ensemble that arose out of this collaboration. Inspired by the complexity, fluidity, and exploitation of water and natural resources across the world, the piece communicates new ways of understanding disruption, reservation, harmony and resonances.

Read the Blog:

Liquid Music | Alexander Mouzouri

The year-long celebration of RNCM’s 50th Anniversary throughout 2022-23 culminated in Made in Manchester, a three-day festival that took place in May 2023 to showcase the amazing breadth of new music created at the RNCM, past and present, along our continued mission to define the future of music.

As part of the festival, PRiSM invited the critically-acclaimed artist Mark Fell to collaborate with eight RNCM composition students (with generous support and guidance from Dr Larry Goves) to create the room where the organ was (2023) – a new installation project for the multichannel Meyer’s Constellation system in the RNCM’s flagship music technology resource Studio 8.

Combining frequency modulation synthesis with new recordings of woodwind instruments through guitar effects pedals, the project celebrates the studio’s previous life in housing the College’s chamber organ, creating and deconstructing an imaginary electric instrument that negotiates with a multidimensional emergence.

In this PRiSM Blog, Fell reflects upon how his vision of the project facilitated his close collaboration with the RNCM student composers, and how these led them to collectively explore a multitude of connections between sounds, space, history, and technology.

Read the Blog:

the room where the organ was | Mark Fell

Composers Emily Howard (Director PRiSM), Larry Goves (Head of Composition, RNCM), Simon Knighton (current PRiSM Doctoral Researcher), Athanasia Kontou (former RNCM composition student and featured in many PRiSM projects) are amongst the 34 names shortlisted for the 2023 Ivors Classical Awards.

Formerly The Ivors Composers Awards, the newly re-launched Ivors Classical Awards celebrate creative excellence in composition for contemporary classical and sound art. In a change to previous years, Irish as well as British composers are eligible for consideration.

PRiSM is also delighted to have supported two of these nominated entries through the Research England Fund Expanding Excellence in England (E3). Both Howard’s Elliptics (2022) and Goves’ Crow Rotations (2022) received their world premieres as part of PRiSM Future Music #4 in October 2022.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at a ceremony at BFI Southbank in London on 14 November 2023.

Following its live-streamed debut in 2020, Jennifer Walshe’s Ireland: A Dataset – the first large-scale work to incorporate material generated by PRiSM SampleRNN – will be performed in front of a live audience for the first time:

hcmf// 2023 | Ireland: A Dataset

Experimental vocal group Tonnta will be joined by saxophonist Nick Roth along with sound engineering from Úna Monaghan and lighting from Aedín Cosgrove, the group coming together to deliver a boisterous radiophonic play exploring Irish identity through issues of nationalism, representation, and inclusion.

The performance will take place on Friday 24 November, as part of a series of events celebrating Walshe’s unique artistic voice and as hcmf// 2023 composer in residence.

See more about hcmf// 2023 and book tickets here.