Prof Battey Concert 'Poetry of Code' at Ankara Music and Fine Arts University

On May 29, 2025, Prof Bret Battey presented a concert of his audiovisual works to students and staff at the Ankara Music and Fine Arts University, Türkiye. Entitled 'The Poetry of Code', the concert included his Clonal Colonies (two movements), Estuaries 1-4, and a screening version of the installation time, bruised, selves (a co-creation with his partner Deniz Ertan). The concert was followed by questions and answers from the audience, covering wide ranging issues in aesthetics and technique.

Edward Clijsen to present at the Biennial International Society of Metal Music Studies Conference, Seville

PhD student Edward Clijsen will be delivering a paper at the 7th BiennialResearch Conference for the International Society of Metal Music Studies (ISMMS), Seville, 3-6th June, 2025. The presentation will discuss the position of microtonality in the extreme, experimental and progressive metal musical landscape and reflect on how this has/will inform his compositional style and approach.

 

 

New album from Simon Emmerson

MTIRG's Professor Emeritus Simon Emmerson's new solo album (available in in CD and high resolution download formats) is out now, and will be officially launched on 4 June, 6.30pm till 8.00pm, the Bathway Theatre, Woolwich, London SE18 6QX. 

The album is released on the well-known NMC label and features recent acousmatic pieces and works for instruments and electroacoustics, featuring Philip Mead and Zubin Kanga (piano), Carla Rees (flutes), Heather Roche (clarinets) and Simon Emmerson (electronics).

To secure a place at the launch please RSVP to development@nmcrec.co.uk by Friday 30 May. The Bathway Theatre is located a six-minute walk from Woolwich Arsenal DLR & mainline and TFL buses run frequent services nearby. For detailed information about travel, please click here

For a preview of the album visit: 
https://www.nmcrec.co.uk/discover/simon-emmerson-sound-around-both-near-and-far-once

 

 

Gavin Bryars Concert

Former DMU Professor of Music Gavin Bryars was at DMU on Saturday 3 May to take part in the opening of the Leicester Gallery's contribution to The Art Schools of the Midlands project. Bryars was interviewed by John Beck and Matthew Cornford prior to giving a concert at St Mary de Castro church later that evening with his ensemble—Dave Smith (piano), James Woodrow (guitar), Morgan Goff (viola), Yuri Bryars (organ, bass, guitar), Audrey Riley (cello) and Bryars himself (keyboard, bass, guitar). Bryars founded the first music department at Leicester Polytechnic (now DMU), and a capacity audience witnessed this emotionally charged first performance by him at DMU since1994.

The concert included six works by Bryars from the 1960s and 70s: 1,2,1-2-3-4 (1972), The Squirrel and the Ricketty Racketty Bridge (1972), Catalogue (1965), 16 Continuous Fragments for solo guitar (1965), Mr Sunshine (1968) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971). The latter work is based around a recording of an unidentified homeless man, and was composed when Bryars was working in the Fine Art Department at DMU. It has attracted world wide acclaim and exists in several versions, including one with the added voice of Tom Waits and a choreographed version by William Forsythe. The concert was recorded by students of DMU's Music Production programme, to be released on vinyl by London-based Shrike records.

The Art Schools of the Midlands exhibition focuses on the impressive number of art schools located in the Midlands and features original photographic images of all 48 sites from across the region, from Hereford to Boston, Chesterfield to Northampton. Celebrating a key aspect of the civic, industrial and architectural history of the region since the mid-nineteenth century, the photographs are also an investigation of the present, recording the sites of former art schools and their current circumstances.
https://www.instagram.com/theartschoolproject/

Gavin Bryars photographed with DMU Music Production students after the concert at St Mary de Castro.

Hear and Now Leicester Project

MTIRG supoorted and hosted the Philharmonia Orchestra's Hear and Now project in Leicester this year.
Hear and Now is a community music project run in Leicester by the Philharmonia in collaboration with Leicester Musical Memory Box/Geet Sangeet, Leicestershire Music and Drum and Brass Leicester. The project brings together older people living with dementia and their carers, young singers and instrumentalists from grassroots community organisations, with players of the Philharmonia to devise and present a varied programme of music, poetry and movement.  Over four weekends the participants, led by composer and animateur Tim Steiner, developed the performance, which was presented in the Sue Townsend Theatre on 27 April 2025. DMU Arts and Festivals Management students gained work experience assisting the show's producer, Philharmonia Community and Engagement Manager Stephanie Waldron.

Hear and Now in rehearsal, PACE Studio 1

 

 

 

Hear and Now performance, Sue Townsend Theatre 27 April 2025

 

MTIRG Symposium 9 April 2025

MTIRG members met on 9 April in the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Lab for a day-long symposium to share research.

Presentations were given by:

Robert Chafer—Mixed Reality Spatial Audio Composition: a distribution platform for multichannel electroacoustic works
Matt Rogerson—Dromos/Autos: The Autistic Ontology as Performance
Edward Clijsen—Redividing the Octave for Expanded Tonal Spaces: Reflections on Recent Practical Explorations of Formalised Approaches to Microtonal Composition
Matthew London—The Integrated Soundtrack: An Analytical Exploration of the Auditory Elements of Music, Sound Design, and Dialogue Within Horror Cinema
Cristiana Palandri—Materialising sound-based composition: exploring multisensory perception and audience engagement between tactile and sonic spheres
Stefano Catena—Analysis and findings of Intention/Reception questionnaires on spatialisation in acousmatic music
Conor Snape—From Concept to Gameplay: Practical Approaches to IDM Derived Sound Effect & Adaptive Audio Design in Modern Video Game Development)
Joe Stillwell—A Study in Movers and Musicians: A Multidisciplinary Lens of Improvisation)
John Young—The Long and Short of Acousmatic Music).

Presenters at the MTIRG Symposium, clockwise, L-R: Edward Clijsen, Conor Snape, Robert Chafer, Joe Stillwell, Matt Rogerson, John Young, Matthew London. Centre: Stefano Catena, Cristiana Palandri

 

Battey serving as jury member for Gilgamesh Music Festival 2025

Prof Bret Battey is serving as a jury member for the Gilgamesh Music Festival 2025, being run by the Gilgamesh Arts and Culture Foundation in California. The prizes will be announced in Summer 2025.