My (the irony of beginning this item with a possessive pronoun will become clear) devised theatre work for oboe and voice some Surrealist methods has been selected to be performed at the Music and/as Process symposium at the University of Huddersfield on Sunday 30th June 2013. This third performance will allow me to further develop practical research into the relationship between a composer-director and performers, and the effect that relationship has on performance.
The premiere performance was the culmination of the initial collaboration between myself, Giacomo Pozzuto (oboe, MA Performance, University of York) and Elspeth Piggott (soprano, undergraduate, University of York), on 10th January 2013. The work, which sets texts from André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism, was devised completely from scratch by the three of us, from November-December 2012. This process involved a series of close open rehearsals utilising improvisation, experimentation, theatrical direction, and instant compositional notation and instruction. As composer-director, my role was to provide fixed written material, if it were desired, collected from recordings of improvised material; to offer musical and theatrical direction to improvisations in order to simultaneously convey my ideas for the piece and enhance those of the performers; to facilitate the presentation of material in a coherent form (creating a working, transferable score).
You can watch Giacomo and Elspeth’s performance here:
**An extract of the score will appear here shortly…**
The second performance was given on 26th April 2013 by Jennifer Green (soprano, MA Contemporary Studies, University of York) and Patrick Burnett (B flat clarinet, MA Conducting, University of York), in a recital of two theatre works, the second being Rose Hall’s terrifying Death Hath Ten Thousand Several Doors On Strange Geometrical Hinges. Jenny approached me about performing the piece after Giacomo and I gave a paper at the York Postgraduate Forum on our process. This time, the process was to see what the performers would do with a fixed score, without any direction from me during the initial experimentation phase.
I saw Jenny and Patrick twice before the performance, but only to work on each movement in separate sessions. During these meetings, they presented their work on the piece to me, and I questioned them on their interpretations of the score before giving musical and theatrical direction which were intended only as enhancements of their predetermined characters. Before I go further, I should say that these are just initial thoughts which need corroborating from post-performance discussion with the performers.
The experience for me was quite an illuminating one, as I found that I could completely remove my personal feelings about the piece to judge their performances dispassionately, which increased my confidence and ability to give constructive feedback on the music and theatre. The loss of singular ownership seemed to allow a collective ownership similar to the first collaboration, freeing both performers and composer-director to experience the piece as the amorphous object it is. I am wondering about the relationship between the psychological and musical consequences that this process can have. The resulting performance by Jenny and Patrick, which I found very individual, humorous and characterful, will be available to watch and listen to shortly.
The performance in Huddersfield will be by the original performers, who will collaborate again with me as composer-director to create a revised version of the piece. More information on the exact form this collaborative process will take will appear shortly, once it has been decided. Stay tuned!