This weekend: Aural Diversity Conference 2019!

Join us for the first Aural Diversity Conference, which will take place this weekend, on Saturday November 30th and Sunday December 1st 2019 at the University of Leicester:

http://auraldiversity.org/conferences.html



PROGRAMME SUMMARY
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30th, 2019
9.00-9.30 Registration. University of Leicester, George Davies Centre (GDC)
9.30-9.45 Welcome. Prof. Andrew Hugill/Prof. John Levack Drever (GDC)
10.00-11.30 SESSION 1: Hearing & Listening 1 (GDC). Chaired by Prof John Drever.
  • Keynote 1: Dr. Alinka Greasley (University of Leeds) “Exploring the music listening behaviour of people with hearing impairments: patient and practitioner perspectives”.
  • Prof. William Davies (University of Salford) “Autistic Listening”
  • Lena Batra (Independent Hearing Therapist) “Assisting the Musically Diverse Patient”
12.00-13.00 SESSION 2: Composing, Music & Sound Art 1. Attenborough Arts Centre (AAC). Chaired by Prof Andrew Hugill.
  • Jay Afrisando (composer) “The (Real) Laptop Music :))” (multimedia performance)
  • Simon Allen (composer) “After Cornell” (multimedia performance)
  • Josephine Dickinson (composer/artist/poet) “ALPHABETULA” (performance)
  • John D'Arcy (digital media researcher) "Do You Hear What I Hear?" (presentation)
14.00-14.10 Welcome address by Professor Paul Monks, Head of the College of Science and Engineering, University of Leicester (GDC)
14.15-16.00 SESSION 3: Hearing & Listening 2 (GDC). Chaired by Dr. Alinka Greasley.
  • Keynote 2: Prof Peter Rea (University Hospitals Leicester) “Aural Diversity: the consequences of pathology and treatment. A surgeon’s perspective”.
  • Dr. Samuel Couth (Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness) ”The show must go on: understanding the effects of musicianship, noise exposure, cognition and ageing on real-world hearing abilities.”
  • Dr. Marie Thompson (University of Lincoln) & Dr. Patrick Farmer (Oxford Brookes University) “Tinnitus, Auditory Knowledge and the Arts”
  • Ed Garland (Aberystwyth University) “Textual hearing aids: how reading about sound can improve sonic experience”
  • 16.00-17.00 SESSION 4: Panel Discussion - Aural Diversity (GDC). Chaired by Dr. Simon Atkinson (De Montfort University).
    • Panel includes keynote speakers (John Drever, Alinka Greasley, Andrew Hugill, Peter Rea). Contributions from the floor invited.
    19.30-21.30 SESSION 5: Aural Diversity Concert #2 Led by Duncan Chapman.
    ***
    SUNDAY DECEMBER 1st
    9.00-9.30 Late registrations, organisational questions.
    9.30-10.30 SESSION 6: Composing, Music & Sound Art 2 (GDC). Chaired by Prof John Drever.
    • Keynote 3: Prof. Andrew Hugill (University of Leicester) “Consequences of Ménière’s Disease and other forms of hearing impairment for musicians, their music-making, hearing care and technologies”.
    • Christopher Cook (Goldsmiths College) “Co-composing with Trevor, who has Mild Cognitive Impairment”
    • 11.00-12.00 SESSION 7: Composing, Music & Sound Art 3 (GDC). Chaired by Prof John Drever.
      • Dr. Balandino Di Donato (University of Leicester), Dr. Tychonas Michailidis (Solent University), Christopher Dewey (University of Huddersfield) “SoundSculpt: sculpting and experiencing sound-objects through mid-air haptics and holographic projection.”
      • Prof. Matthew Sansom (Sunway University, KL, Malaysia) “Aural and other perceptually diverse inclusivity in an example of interdisciplinary arts practice”
      • Dr. Matthew Spring (Bath Spa University) “Thomas Mace: a functioning deaf musician and music theorist in the seventeenth-century”.
      • 12.30-13.30 SESSION 8: Soundscape, Environment & Acoustic Ecology 1 (GDC). Chaired by Dr. Alinka Greasley.
        • Keynote 4: Prof. John Levack Drever (Goldsmiths College) “Phonating Hand Dryers: exploits in aural diverse composition and co-composition”.
        • Dr. Karla Berrens Torruella (University of Barcelona) “Sound, discomfort and the making of place in an urban environment.”
        • 14.00-15.00 SESSION 9: Artists’ Statements (GDC). Chaired by John Drever
          • Alan Jacques (musician and trustee of the Ménière's Society) “A Tale of Two Inner Ears - Learning to live with Cochlear Amusia”
          • Josephine Dickinson (composer/artist/poet) “ALPHABETULA”
          • Lena Batra (Independent Hearing Therapist) “Embracing the Inbetween”
          • 15.30-16.30 SESSION 10: Soundscape, Environment & Acoustic Ecology 2 (GDC). Chaired by Prof Andrew Hugill.
            • Dr. Meri Kytö (University of Eastern Finland) “Cochlear implant as soundscape arranger: rethinking the signal-to-noise ratio”
            • Johan Malmstedt (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) “Ecological Ears: Modes of Listening in the Writings of Murray Schafer and Bernie Kraus”
            • Additional item: David Holzman (concert pianist) “Deep River - A Pianist’s Journey With Hearing Loss”
            16.30-17.00 SESSION 11: Plenary discussion (GDC). Chaired by Prof John Drever. Questions to be sought from delegates in advance of the conference. The discussion will also focus on planning of future events and research.
            17.00 Close
            ADDITIONAL EVENT: CONCERT
            Sara Stowe (soprano) and Matthew Spring (early instruments) Apollo, Orpheus, Midas and Pan. Hearing and mythology in early song. December 3rd 2019, 12:45-1:45pm (approximate) in the Main Hall, Attenborough Arts Centre.

Bret Battey: 'Three Breaths in Empty Space' Installation


Bret Battey's new installation Three Breaths in Empty Space was commissioned by Phoenix Cinema, Leicester, to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their move to the Cultural Quarter. It will run mid-November to the end of December 2019, filling the Phoenix Gallery with abstract computer animations and surround sound generated with custom software systems. The work invites participants to contemplate continuous change and shimmering instabilities in everything from subatomic activity to the level of the cosmos. Are we witnessing quantum foam on invisible waves, nerve patterns in the body-mind, maps of social structures coalescing and transforming, or transfigurations of some vast nebula? As ghostly fragments of Maurice Ravel’s piano work Ondine occasionally materialise and dissolve at peaks of audiovisual intensity, we can ponder how phenomena arise and pass in Emptiness.

For more information: https://www.phoenix.org.uk/event/three-breaths-in-empty-space/