The Open Music Project 2012 is an open score project, run by AIC and funded under the Arts Council’s Project Funding Scheme. The project will run from March until May 2012. It is a mentoring scheme aimed at composers who seek further practical experience in getting their scores realised.
On May 18th and 19th the Open Music Project entered its final phase. from 10-about 3.30pm on those days the pieces were recorded in a final workshop/recording session. This took place at the Barry Room, National Concert Hall. There were 9 pieces, from David Collier, Emma O'Halloran, Raeghnya Zutshi, Sean Doherty, Donal MacErlaine, Galen Mac Caba, Sinead Finegan, Fiona Linnane and Jenn Kirby. Performers were Susan Doyle, Paul Roe, Ryan Molloy, Cora Venus Lunny and Annette Cleary.
Below is a report from Grainne Mulvey on our ongoing Project, run with the assistance of the Arts Council Project Funding Scheme. Final part to be open to those interested in attending a composer workshop and takes place at NCH in the Barry Room on May 18th and 19th - 10am to 4.30pm.
The Open Music Project got off to a very positive start on Sunday March 11th at the Contemporary Music Centre. The selected composers participated in a full day of discussions and mentoring sessions led by John McLachlan (composer and Director of AIC), Peter Moran (composer and Director of the Music Educators Orchestra) and myself (composer and Head of Composition at DIT).
John McLachlan opened the session with an overview of the project. He offered much practical advice concerning the problems of creating graphic scores and the advantages and disadvantages of writing a piece which has to be realisable not only by professional players, who may have experience of different notations, but also by amateurs who may have no experience of notated music at all.
Peter Moran then discussed the kinds of challenges that composers and performers usually come across in creating open score music. Ensembles such as CoMA (Contemporary Music for All), of which he was a director for four years, are comprised of amateur performers who are dedicated to new and experimental music. Ireland’s Music Educators Orchestra, by comparison are more experienced performers but less familiar with improvisation and contemporary music. So, one of the main challenges facing the composer is to find ways of expressing complex musical ideas in logical and simple terms that can suit these different environments. This challenge is made all the greater given the short rehearsal time available.
The morning session ended with the composers speaking about their ideas. These incorporated many extra-musical subjects such as psychoacoustics, Irish aesthetics in music and life experiences. The discussion was extremely lively and was very telling of the myriad styles of contemporary music in this country at present. As a consequence of the discussion, some participants completely changed from their initial ideas, following advice given by the mentors. The remainder of the day was taken up with one to one sessions with the mentors.
The next meeting, on 14th April, included a morning workshop where extracts from the composers’ scores were performed and recorded by performers from various professional ensembles: Susan Doyle (flutes) Paul Roe (clarinets) Cora Venus Lunny (violin) Annette Cleary (cello) and Ryan Molloy (piano). The afternoon was taken up with further one to one sessions with the composers and mentors.
The final meetings will take place on 18th and 19th May, when the completed scores will be recorded.
Gráinne Mulvey.
There is now an interview on line about the project at http://cmcireland.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/open-music-project/
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