Composition Prospectus 2018 19 1
introduction The Composition Department is at the heart of creativity and experimentation at the Royal Academy of Music and our students are constantly engaged in numerous collaborations and projects with their fellow performers within the building and beyond. Lectures, talks, seminars, classes, concerts, recording sessions, installations, collaborations, rehearsals, interviews, workshops and multimedia live events make up the core activity of this busy department. The Academy s undergraduate and postgraduate Composition Programmes offer cuttingedge curricula that reflect the realities and challenges for composers in the early 21st century. As a student at the Academy you will be joining an institution which is currently enjoying extraordinary levels of success. In 2017 the Higher Education Funding Council for England scored our graduates as having 100% employment six months after graduation. We had the highest conservatoire ratings in last year s National Student Survey for overall student satisfaction, and our teaching was deemed exemplary, and recognised with a Gold Teaching Excellence Framework award. Philip Cashian Head of Composition 2
departmental staff Head of Composition Dr Philip Cashian Richard Rodney Bennett Professor of Music Oliver Knussen Senior Professor of Composition Simon Bainbridge Visiting Professors of Composition John Adams Sir Harrison Birtwistle James Newton Howard Professor Tod Machover Bent Sørensen Lecturers Dr Oscar Colomina Bosch Philip Dawson Dr Patrick Nunn Honorary Research Fellows Dr Tansy Davies Huw Watkins Department Administrator and Project Manager Emily Mould composition@ram.ac.uk Direct Line: +44 (0)20 7873 7379 Switchboard +44 (0)20 7873 7373 Principal Study Professors Rubens Askenar Christopher Austin Gary Carpenter Dr Edmund Finnis Helen Grime Morgan Hayes Dr David Sawer 3
PROGRAMMES OF STUDY The BMus is designed to prepare students for the professional world and equip them with the necessary skills to be able to work in a broad range of musical genres and disciplines. The four-year Undergraduate Programme is clearly structured while still allowing flexibility for specific areas of interest to flourish and become more apparent in our students body of work. The programme offers intensive first and second years during which students develop an individual approach to their work. The third and fourth years focus more on portfolio activity. The one-year MA and one- or two-year MMus are designed to enable advanced students to develop artistically and technically by means of a cohesive yet contrasting series of commissions, projects and tasks. The programme offers students the opportunity to face a variety of challenges involving deadlines and the need to be practical in preparation for such requirements in the musical world at large. The MPhil/PhD Programme in Composition is designed to encourage postgraduate composers to pursue their artistic development to the highest possible level and to reflect critically upon the significance of their compositional activity through analytical exploration and collaborative work in the Academy s rich performance environment. For further information, visit our website: www.academycomposers.london 4
BMUS PROGRAMME Undergraduate composers can choose to write for the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, Manson Ensemble (chamber orchestra), brass tentet, Symphonic Wind Orchestra or wind quintet/string quintet mixed ensemble each year. Their new piece will be workshopped and recorded during a three-hour session. In addition we have three Composers Platform concerts per year, which consist entirely of student premieres. Two of these concerts take place outside the Academy to offer students a more public profile for their work. All undergraduate students receive a onehour lesson each week with their Principal Study professor. We encourage students to do a lesson swap with a fellow student twice a term to get a fresh perspective on their work. Students are also given the opportunity to have a lesson with our bi-annual Composers in Residence and Visiting Professors. BMus students choose four works to submit to their portfolio at the end of each year, which grow in duration and scale over the course of the four years. Year one and two students also compose music for recording sessions during the first and second terms as part of their Music and Media Applications module. There will also be classes in orchestration, technology and techniques of composition as well as repertoire classes and weekly seminars during the first two years. Third- and fourth-year composers continue studies in orchestration and technology alongside further modules in improvisation, writing for theatre, electronic music, analysis and structure. This institution was seen to be setting global standards in conservatoire education. [...] major international artists were both engaging with and emerging from the institution. Collaborations with other leading institutions around the world were seen as indicative of the esteem in which the peer group holds the Royal Academy of Music Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), 2016
MA AND MMUS PROGRAMMES The main focus for the Postgraduate Programmes is a series of projects running through the year that offer students the opportunity to write new pieces for concerts and events in the Academy calendar. Students have the chance to workshop and try out works in progress prior to performance. Currently postgraduate composers can choose to write new works for the following projects: The London Accordion Orchestra The Hermes Experiment (and poet Gillian Clarke) CHROMA Ensemble Carte Blanche Ensemble The Tritium Trio Michael Foyle and Huw Watkins Film collaboration with RADA Project with the Academy s Historical Performance department Mallet quartets with Colin Currie Cabaret songs Audio/video installations for the Academy s Festival of Space Students are also encouraged to collaborate with Academy performers, organising and putting on concerts themselves. In addition, Master s students will write a 10-minute work for the Academy Symphony Orchestra at the end of their first year, which will be rehearsed and recorded at the beginning of their second year. Postgraduate composers receive a 90-minute lesson each week with their principal study professor and, like undergraduates, are encouraged to swap lessons occasionally to have a fresh perspective from other professors. In addition there will be the opportunity to have a lesson with the bi-annual Composer in Residence as well as a lesson once a term with our Visiting Professor of Composition, Oliver Knussen. Orchestration, conducting and technology modules are also taken by MMus and Master s composers. The contemporary music workshop offers the opportunity for students to collaborate and experiment with Master s performers in the creation of new work. In their second year of study, MMus students can choose between undertaking an analysis project of their choice or curating a concert project. 6
recent highlights Over 120 new student works premiered in the last academic year. The Art of Chaos: a three-day festival of new student work comprising sound and video installations, animation, political cabaret and concerts below Shoreditch Town Hall. Composers in Residence: Andrew Norman, Magnus Lindberg, Bent Sørensen, Michael Finnissy and Anders Hillborg attended concerts of their music and gave masterclasses, seminars and individual lessons. Student premieres with the Academy s Manson Ensemble conducted by Oliver Knussen, the Academy Soloists led by Clio Gould, the Manson Ensemble conducted by Chris Austin, the Behn Quartet, Zubin Kanga, Tabea Debus, Zoë Martlew and a concert of new student choral works with Blossom Street chamber choir led by Judith Weir. PhD student project in Gedai University, Tokyo, collaborating with traditional Japanese musicians on new pieces. Student performance of Hans Abrahamsen s Schnee and Märchenbilder. Master s students in 2016 and 2017 took part in Creative Dialogue workshops in the US and Finland with Anssi Karttunen, Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. A performance of Gavin Bryars s The Sinking of the Titanic with new student sound installations at Ambika P3. Student commissions premiered at the Spitalfields Festival. Talks and masterclasses with John Adams, Harrison Birtwistle and the Gildas String Quartet, Anssi Karttunen, James Newton Howard, Melinda Maxwell, Laurence Crane, Mark Simpson, Julia Haferkorn, Christian Mason, Philip Venables, Rebecca Fiebrink, Cassandra Miller, Paul Morley, Gavin Bryars, Tom Coult and Joe Cutler. Students wrote for the London Symphony Orchestra s Panufnik Composers scheme, the Philharmonia s Composers Academy, the BBC Symphony Orchestra s Embedded scheme, Sound and Music s Next Wave scheme, the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, the CBSO, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Modern. Two performances of seven new dance scores made in collaboration with choreographers from Roehampton University s Dance Department. 7
This institution was seen to be setting global standards in conservatoire education. There was compelling evidence that hugely impressive major international artists were both engaging with and emerging from the institution Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), 2016 Patron HM The Queen President HRH The Duchess of Gloucester GCVO Principal Professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood facebook.com/royalacademyofmusic twitter.com/royalacadmusic instagram.com/royalacademyofmusic Sign up to email alerts at www.ram.ac.uk/sign-up Registered Charity No 310007 8 Marylebone Road London NW1 5HT www.ram.ac.uk Contact: 020 7873 7379