To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.
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I have just finished my five-date solo piano tour, ONE, which featured me as the performer, Debbie Sharp as a video installation artist, and Jacob Thompson-Bell as producer. It was a lot of fun, if a bit exhausting, and it was great to see some OCA students in the audience at two of the gigs.
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On a warm July morning, twenty one musicians descended on Harlaxton manor for five days of flute playing and composing at the annual rarescale summer school. An eclectic bunch, the flautists ranged from talented amateurs to music college graduates embarking on performing careers, and the composition group consisted of undergraduate music students and early career composers.
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I have, probably since the age of 14 or so, identified myself as a composer. I played piano (and also guitar and flute rather unsuccessfully), and have variously performed as a classical pianist, accompanist, duo partner, cocktail pianist, jazz pianist, and even a keyboardist in a rock band, yet because I studied composition at music college, and I now lecture in composition, I never really identified as being a performer.
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“I think piece titles are very important! A piece should drape naturally from its title, in the same way a coat hangs off a peg. I often find the music suggests a title, which certainly happened in Summer Anthem, with the title drawing upon the generic association of dance music with the summer season and of this genre with club ‘anthems’, this term often indicating a big hook.”
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In the first blog I covered the fundamentals: what you need to include in a score and how to make it look clear and easily readable. In this second post I will explore the presentation of more complicated music, including larger ensembles and more complex rhythmic notation.
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In April, around 10 OCA students, with their instruments, converged on the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester for a music study day, to spend a day performing, creating, and well, who knew what else?
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This Spring saw the launch of the Stylistic Techniques music course at the OCA. It’s a core unit designed for all music students and is intended to be approachable by post foundation course level students.
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It is easy to dismiss the Listening Log as less important than the composition component of an assignment, but this is not the case; listening is a crucial part of improving one’s musical ability. Therefore, when assessing, it is wonderful to see the work of students who have fully embraced the Listening Log, and David Lake’s submission is a perfect example of this.
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Emma’s composition 1 submission was outstanding, and serves as an excellent example of what can be achieved within the brief for each assignment. While her work had a consistency of quality throughout, the counterpoint exercise at Assignment 4 was particularly worthy of note.
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Piers is, along with pianist Christopher Guild, a founding member of The Edison Ensemble and is currently a PhD student at the university of Brunel studying with Professor Peter Wiegold. Much of his recent music utilises the radio.
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