PhD Student Edward Clijsen delivered a paper at the Innovation in Music Conference 2025 (InMusic25) at Bath Spa University, 20-22nd June, 2025. The paper reflected on the compositional process and outcomes of composing the piece Äußern (2024) for the ’19-div’ and ‘quarter-tone’ microtonal trumpets, in collaboration with Stephen Altoft of Microtonal Projects.
Stefano Catena's composition Travelling Without Moving continues to have performances having been accepted for the JIM/LAC (Journées de l'Informatique
Musicale/Linux Audio Conference) artistic programme in Lyon from the
23rd to 28th of
June. It will be played at the Théâtre Astrée of Lyon 1 University in 8.1 channel format.
The full programme is here: https://jimlac25.inria.fr/program/
 |
| Théâtre Astrée, Lyon |
A short article by Prof. John Young 'The Sound Pool' / 'Le réservoir sonore' was published today in a collection of artists' statements Did You Say Sound Library / Vous avez dit sonothèque? edited by Valentin Sismann in both French and English.
The collection includes statements from 23 composers on ways in which they gather, categorise and organise the sounds they make in the course of composing acousmatic music. It will be of interest to anyone working creatively with sound—in composition and/or sound design in many different settings.
The 50-page collection includes statements by François Bayle, Philippe Mion, Robert Normandeau, Elsa Justel, Hans Tutschku, Jonty Harrison, Elizabeth Anderson, Annette Vande Gorne, Tomonari Higaki, Ana Dall’Ara-Majek, Daniel Teruggi, Marco Marini, Armando Balice, Régis Renouard Larivière, Christine Groult, Denis Dufour, Jean-Marc Duchenne, Christian Zanési, Stéphane Roy, Lucie Prod’homme, Åke Parmerud and Young, as well as insight into the working methods of Bernard Paremgiani by Claude-Anne Parmegiani, Maxime Barthélemy and Marco Marini.
English version: https://valentinsismann.com/Vous-avez-dit-sonotheque-ENG
French version: https://valentinsismann.com/Vous-avez-dit-sonotheque
 |
| Valentin Sismann |
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.
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
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. |
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 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 |
Prof Bret Battey's audiovisual composition 'Estuaries 4' was screened 27 Mar 2025 at Carnegie Melon University, Pittsburgh as part of a international selection of works presented by AV@CMU.
PhD Student Edward Clijsen will be delivering a presentation reflecting on his recent work and processes in composing for the Kingma System Alto Flute; ‘19-div’ and ‘Quarter-tone’ Microtonal trumpets; and his upcoming project composing for 31-EDO Fokker Organ and 96-EDO Carrillo Piano.
The students had privileged access to recordings of people involved in the reinterment events, coordinated by oral historian Rebecca Hale. They also made contemporary recordings of other sounds such as church bells, various instruments and voices, and music played on the cathedral’s organ, and they captured others such as the timeless sound of water from the stream that runs close to the Bosworth battlefield where Richard III died on 22 August 1485.
The project was featured in an article in the Leicester Mercury.
Prof. Bret Battey and PhD candidate Stefano Catena have chapters in a new book Collaboration, Engagement, and Tradition in Contemporary and Electronic Music: NoiseFloor Perspectives, just published by Routledge. The book’s contents have been developed from selected papers given at Staffordshire University’s NoiseFloor conference.
Stefano Catena's piece Travelling Without Moving was selected for the listening room during the ‘Immersive Festival' , which will take place at Lisboa Incomum (Lisboa, Portugal), from March 20th to 23rd alongside composers such as Annette Vande Gorne and Joao Pedro Oliveira. All the works will be performed in a specialised 16-channel partial dome.
https://www.lisboaincomum.pt/2025/02/festival-imersivo-2025.html
PhD student Eddie Clijsen gave an introductory talk before the screening of Omar and Cedric : If This Ever Gets Weird at the Phoenix/DMU Festival of CINE MISFITS to a full theatre on 28 January 2025. Featuring Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez the film traces the lives and careers of the two musicians, especially in relation to their band The Mars Volta.
Clijsen's talk outlined the idea of the 'alternative' in music before going on to evaluate Bixler-Zavala's and Rodriguez-Lopez's remarkable contributions to a range of musical genres.
 |
| Eddie Clijsen at CINE MISFITS |
As of December 2024, Prof. Leigh Landy has been appointed Visiting Professor at the ERHMEE research centre at the Ionian University in Corfu. ERHMEE has been a partner of the MTI Research Centre for ca. 15 years and this appointment is a celebration of our excellent relationship.
