Category Archives: Current students

City Research Seminar on ‘Life Post-PhD’

On Wednesday 24th February, 2016, three City University alumni – Sini Timonen (BIMM), Laura Seddon (University of Portsmouth) and Robert Percy (Composer) – came in to discuss the paths that they have taken since completing their PhDs in the Music Department. It was an informative session for current postgraduates, and fascinating to learn how each member of the panel had charted their own course – both in and out of academia – after completing their research degrees.

As a composer, Robert balances commissioned works with lecturing, including the UG module Orchestral and Instrumental Studies at City. Through teaching experiences gained during her PhD research, Sini quickly found her way into a management role at modern music institute BIMM. Laura set up her own contemporary arts production organisation, before finding an interdisciplinary academic post for her research on gender and music, in the School of Languages at the University of Portsmouth.

Sini, Robert and Laura all agreed on a number of important aspects for planning life post-PhD. They recommended making and maintaining personal connections, as well as thinking outside the box (and outside of jobs.ac.uk) when considering employment opportunities. They all created their own events and found innovative ways to disseminate their research. Most of all, they reminded us that creative thinking and new ideas can be applied to finding your way in life after the PhD, as well as within your thesis.

Tullis Rennie, Visiting Lecturer in Composition

City Students and Alumni present at BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference 2016: ‘Disciplines in Dialogue’

The 49th Annual Music Research Students’ Conference took place in Prifysgol, Bangor University (Wales), from 6th to 8th January 2016. Usually organised by the Royal Music Association, it was for the first time this year co-organised with the British Forum for Ethnomusicology. It gathered music students from all over the UK and from overseas.

The theme of the conference was ‘Disciplines in Dialogue: a multidisciplinary conference for students involved in all kinds of music research’ and papers explored the boundaries between musicologies of various kinds.

City University MA alumna Solène Heinzl and PhD student and Visiting Lecturer Stephen Wilford attended the conference on the 7th and 8th January respectively. Solène presented a paper on ‘The Impact of Technological Communication on Filmmaker-Composer Creative Collaboration’ and Stephen Wilford spoke about the potential of the Internet as a site for ethnomusicological fieldwork as part of the ‘Fieldwork Methods’ session.

The 7^th January included two very informative careers and methodologies sessions: the first on ‘How to Get Published’, sponsored by the publisher Routledge; the second on ‘Post-PhD Careers Beyond Academia’. There was also an opportunity for students to express their needs and concerns during the ‘Open Discussion of Graduate Training Needs’. The day ended with a keynote presentation by Professor Keith Howard (SOAS, University of London) entitled ‘The Future of Our Musical Pasts’. Professor Howard considered convergences and divergences between ethnomusicology and musicology and asked whether these discussions were relevant today, stressing the importance of preserving and sustaining the future of our musical pasts.

The second day of the conference included a number of panels with students presenting papers on a range of topics. These included another City BMus and MA alumnus, Andrew Pace, whose presentation focused on the role of the guitar in Maltese ghana music. Andrew traced the historical development of acoustic guitars in the local Maltese music scene, examining both the evolving design of the instruments and their role in affording status to the musicians playing them. The day also included panels on ‘Current Issues in Music in Higher Education’ (convened by the National Association for Music in Higher Education) and ‘Fieldwork Methods’ (convened by the BFE). The conference concluded with a keynote presentation (in the form of the Jerome Roche Lecture) from Professor Nanette Nielson (University of Oslo). Professor Nielson’s paper examined issues of subjectivity in relation to the role of music in film, and discussed the ways in which music is able to shape the merging subjectivities of characters and spectators.

The conference was a great success, bringing together postgraduate students and scholars with a range of musical interests. The connections formed between RMA, BFE and NAMHE members and the productive discussions that these generated, should be applauded, and hopefully augur well for the future of such joint conferences.

Solene Heinzl and Stephen Wilford

Professor Keith Howard’s Keynote Presentation

Ruth Glasspool (Managing Editor, Visual Arts, Music and Theatre & Performance Journals, Routledge, Left) and Professor Laura Tunbridge (Editor, Journal of the Royal Music Association, Right) – session on ‘How to Get Published’

Conference Report: ‘Music, Composition and Interdisciplinarity: States of Play’

On Thursday 28^th January 2016 my fellow MA student Michael Alloway and I attended the ‘Music, Composition and Interdisciplinarity: States of Play’ conference which was held at Oxford Brookes University. Hosted by Dr Tom Armstrong (University of Surrey) and Professor Paul Whitty (Oxford Brookes University), the event was both engaging and thought-provoking and will no doubt prepare us well to embark upon the Interdisciplinarity and Collaborative Process MA module of this term.

Following a welcome talk, the first panel session focused on leading and facilitating interdisciplinarity, and featured composer Peter Wiegold (Brunel University), Professor Rebecca Hoyle (University of Southampton) and Professor Paul Whitty. Ideas raised in this session included the tensions which may arise in interdisciplinary work and collaboration, the complex issues surrounding the rigidity of ‘the discipline’ as a concept, and whether in fact this rigidity is diminishing as interdisciplinary work becomes increasingly common. Dr Armstrong, the chair of the panel, suggested that interdisciplinarity is in fact a more natural approach to scholarly work than disciplinarity, resounding with initial anxieties expressed in the 19th Century by Friedrich Nietzsche, as the disciplines first began to take hold. Professor Hoyle, a mathematician whose current project focuses on striving to answer various research questions using interdisciplinary means, echoed this view. She claimed the lines which separate disciplines are unimportant, and to successfully answer a research question one must draw from whichever discipline is necessary.

Delegates were then invited to take part in a vocal theatre workshop led by composer Helen Chadwick. In a thoroughly enjoyable hour, we were taught snippets from some of Helen’s song theatre pieces and learnt about her work as director of the Helen Chadwick Song Theatre. After lunch, the second panel took to the floor which featured Susanna Eastburn (Chief Executive Sound and Music) and our own visiting lecturer, composer and artist Claudia Molitor. Similar ideas were expressed here which indicated the move towards interdisciplinarity as a normative process in the arts. Claudia noted how often an idea may naturally demand interdisciplinary processes without necessarily having set out as an interdisciplinary project, and pointed out that the distinctions between interdisciplinarity and collaboration must be considered. The keynote speech was given by Professor Cathy Lane (University of the Arts London, Director of CRISAP) who presented her recent work in sound art. Professor Lane’s research interests include how sound can relate to the past and memories, which is reflected in her work using the spoken word, while her practice has also been largely shaped by the women’s movement. Professor Lane was awarded her PhD in electroacoustic composition from City University.

The conference concluded with a plenary discussion, which both Michael and I agree to have provided much food for thought. We are grateful to Claudia for inviting us along and are excited to be part of the ‘interdisciplinarity’ network, though admittedly a highlight of the day was to discover that we are in fact not alone in our constant struggle to pronounce the key word.

Rachel Cunniffe, MA Music Student

Careers with a Music Degree – Two Reports

The Postgraduate Student Perspective – Rachel Cunniffe, MA Music student

The evening of Tuesday 2^nd February 2016 saw the annual ‘Careers with a Music Degree’ event, organised by the Music Department and City University’s Careers Service take place in the Performance Space. As part of the ongoing 40^th birthday celebrations, this year’s event was larger than usual and was clearly a great success. A captive audience comprised of undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and alumni listened to speakers from various professional roles, a number of whom were City music alumni. Presented by Dr Alexander Lingas, each speaker outlined their current role and the journey which led them to it, and offered helpful advice to audience members on achieving their goals.

The presentations were opened by Celeste Richardson, a City music alumna, who spoke of her initial ambitions to be a professional soprano yet decided instead to pursue a teaching pathway. Celeste is now the Principal and Managing Director at Foresound Music Education Ltd., a non-profit organisation which currently provides music teaching for over four hundred families. She is also resident soprano and member of the artistic board at the Riot Ensemble. The second speaker, Francesca Treadaway, spoke of her journey to becoming Communications Officer at the Incorporated Society of Musicians, a non-profit organisation with seven thousand members. Francesca spent much of her time as a music college student writing reviews and articles, many of which were published, and these skills helped her secure her current role. Next we heard from Dr Jim Harrison, the Head of Music at Latymer School and his colleague Michael Spence, who both spoke of the teaching profession as highly rewarding and incredibly varied. Donald Wetherick from the British Association for Music Therapy outlined the goals of Music Therapy and his journey to the role, and concluded with some helpful advice to potential applicants which highlighted the importance of gaining experience in a relevant setting. The fifth presentation was given by Harriette Hale, also a City music alumna, who founded Chocolate Box Music at age nineteen and now owns six successful companies. Chocolate Box Music, which is now globally recognised, emerged from a passion to achieve a viable income for professional musicians. Harriette’s other ventures include a music academy, a dance studio and an online mentoring and coaching resource. Finally, Dr Sophie Ransby, Gamelan Manager at the Southbank Centre and City music alumna spoke of her time in Indonesia, the journey to her current role and the incredibly varied work she undertakes at the Southbank Centre.

The evening concluded with an informal networking reception with speakers and other City alumni guests. Many students spoke enthusiastically of the reception and of the event as a whole.

The Undergraduate Student Perspective -Alexander McDonagh, BMus Year 2 Student

There has always appeared to be an idea that if you’re studying for a music degree then performance, teaching or unemployment are going to be the routes one follows post degree. On the evening of Tuesday 2nd February that myth was shattered. What happened on that evening was the annual ‘Careers with a Music Degree’ event, organised in partnership between City University’s Music Department and the university Careers Service.

I, like many of my fellow students, chose to study music at university because of the love affair I had been having with the subject from a very young age. Yet despite this, my plans post university had always remained a light sketch rather than a definitive blueprint. I knew a degree was going to be extremely beneficial to whatever path I chose to go down but I hadn’t actually given much consideration to what that path was going to be. This was where the ‘Careers with a Music Degree’ evening came to the rescue.

The evening saw numerous speakers discuss their careers, all following a music related pathway, as well as imparting invaluable advice to the audience of undergraduates (like myself); postgraduate students; staff and alumni. This was followed by an informal networking over nibbles and wine where we were able to absorb as much life experience and wisdom as we possibly could.

Although all the speakers were inspiring and I could easily write about all of them in detail, if only I didn’t have a degree to complete, I have decided to focus on three speeches which I found a real connection to and which I feel were most beneficial to my personal career path.

The first speaker of the evening was Celeste Richardson. After completing her music degree at City, Celeste began to pursue a career as a professional soprano. After realising that it wasn’t what she wanted to do for the rest of her life she founded Foresound Music Education Ltd of which she is the Principal and Managing Director. This not-for-profit company has grown significantly and now provides musical education to over 400 families across London. For me the most inspiring thing about Celeste’s story was that it beautifully personified that your career isn’t set in stone and that (forgive me for sounding like a horoscope) taking a risk and following your intuition can lead to much bigger plans than you ever expected.

The second speaker who I found extremely beneficial was Francesca Treadaway who is the Communications Officer for the ISM, the Incorporated Society of Musicians. The ISM is a non-profit organisation that provides support, protection and advice to over 7,000 members who are working or studying musicians. After studying the trumpet at music conservatoire, Francesca realised this wasn’t the career she saw herself doing and decided to follow another passion of hers: writing. Having been an avid writer throughout her time at music college, writing articles and reviews, Francesca was able to successfully carve a path for herself. Having also spoken to her after the talk, the best piece of advice that she imparted to me was that sometimes we have to be brave and hold our hands up if we aren’t happy and say ‘this isn’t the job for me’. Your first job isn’t necessarily the right one and you have to be prepared to take a risk and step away if it doesn’t feel right.

The next speaker to particularly inspire me was Harriet Hale, another City alumna. Having founded her first company, Chocolate Box Music, at the age of nineteen whilst still a student at City, Harriet has now gone on to found a further five companies. Whilst her initial company was born out of a desire to help provide a viable income for her fellow students and other musicians, she has gone on to create a music academy as well as an online mentoring scheme to name but a few of her ventures. For me what was so inspiring about Harriet was her pragmatic approach to business; her insatiable drive for success and her determination to choose her own direction in this world. For me the last point was the one which I took most heed of. If there isn’t a path which you’re happy with get a damn axe and start carving your own way through the woods.

I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who spoke during the evening and to the City Music Department and City’s Careers Service for providing me and my fellow students which such an invaluable experience.

http://www.city.ac.uk/careers

Celeste Richardson

Dr Jim Harrison and Mr Michael Spence

Sophie Ransby

Mr Donald Wetherick talking to current MA student Jocelyn Coates

The Middle East in London Magazine Features City Staff and Student

The Middle East in London magazine is published five times a year by the London Middle East Institute at the School or Oriental and African Studies. The February/March 2016 issue is a special issue on Iranian music and features articles by City lecturer Dr Laudan Nooshin and PhD student Roya Arab, as well as a review of Laudan’s 2015 book Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity (Ashgate Press) by Stefan Williamson Fa.

Laudan’s article ‘Sounding the City: Tehran’s Contemporary Soundscapes’ is based on her recent field trip to Iran in August/ September 2015 and explores the relationship between sound and the urban environment as a means of understanding individuals’ engagement with the sensory sound-worlds that they inhabit. Roya’s article – ‘Swaying to Persian and Middle Eastern Tunes in London’ – offers a snapshot of Iranian and Middle Eastern music in London.

Pdfs of the two articles and book review are available below.

https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/meil/

Nooshin, MEIL article Jan 2016

Roya Arab Middle East in London Magazine Article (Jan 2016)

Review of Laudan Nooshin, Iranian Classical Music, MEIL Jan 2016

Recent news from PhD Students: Miranda Crowdus

City Music PhD student Miranda Crowdus has recently been appointed to the position of Research Assistant at the European Centre for Jewish Music at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany. She will be conducting interdisciplinary research on Jewish musical-liturgical practices in women’s Rosh Chodesh (new month) services. Miranda’s PhD thesis is entitled ‘Hip Hop Practices in South Tel Aviv: “Third Space”, Convergent Dispossession(s), and Intercultural Dynamics in Urban Borderlands’. She has recently published a chapter entitled ‘Deviance, Polyvalence and Musical “Third Space”: Negotiating Boundaries of Jewishness at Palestinian Hip Hop Performances’ in the book Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism (Routledge 2015).

Miranda sends many many thanks to all her friends and mentors at City as well as very best wishes for 2016.

City Speakers at Hidden Musicians Revisited Conference

In 1989 Ruth Finnegan – an anthropologist based at the Open University – published a book called ‘The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town’. Based on several years of ethnographic research in the ‘new town’ of Milton Keynes, the book uncovered a wealth of amateur music-making in a town which had become widely dubbed as a ‘cultural desert’. ‘The Hidden Musicians’ became a landmark publication in the study of music and culture.

On 11th and 12th January 2016, ‘The Hidden Musicians Revisited’ conference was held at the Open University in Milton Keynes. It was organised by City University music alumna Catherine Tackley (now teaching at the OU) and was attended by about 50 people from across the UK and abroad. Keynote papers were presented by Ruth Finnegan herself and Professor Derek Scott (University of Leeds).

City lecturer Laudan Nooshin and completing PhD student and Visiting Lecturer Stephen WIlford both presented papers at the conference, as follows: ‘Hide and Seek: The Internet as an Alternative Public Space for Iran’s ‘Hidden’ Musicians’ and ‘Hidden Musicians in Public Spaces: Algerian Musics and Festivals in Contemporary London’.

This was a fascinating conference in which papers addressed many different aspects of ‘hidden-ness’ in relation to music and musicians.

City Middle Eastern Music Ensemble at the Youth Proms

On Monday 23rd November, City’s Middle Eastern Music Ensemble performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Music for Youth Proms, joining the Cornwall Youth Orchestra, 47 junior violinists from Cornwall and Northamptonshire and four narrators. They performed ‘Prince Zal and the Simorgh’, a piece for orchestra and Iranian instruments composed by David Bruce in 2012 and commissioned by City University London and the London Philharmonic Orchestra as part a larger outreach project introducing young people to Iranian music and culture. The project grew out of Laudan Nooshin‘s ethnomusicological research into Iranian music, which has facilitated access to and understanding of the country’s art and culture in Britain and around the world.

Laudan explained that the piece is based on a story from the Iranian epic poem The Shahnameh (‘Book of Kings’) written about 1,000 years ago by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (940-1020). The story tells of Prince Zal: born albino and abandoned as a baby, Zal is found and raised by the magical and wise Simorgh bird; many years later he is reconciled with his family and returns triumphantly as the new king. She said: “With its many topical themes of tolerance and forgiveness, this story proved a wonderfully rich source for use with British youth. In particular, the piece offers a more positive image and understanding of Iran – its people, culture and history – to the young people performing and hearing it than they might normally experience through the media and other kinds of representation.”

A chance discussion led to Prince Zal being chosen by Cornwall Youth Orchestra for a performance at the National Festival of Music for Youth in Birmingham in July 2015, following which the piece was selected for the Youth Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The orchestra was joined by members of City University’s Middle Eastern Music Ensemble who played various Iranian percussion instruments and with first year BMus student Antonios Rousounelos as soloist. The concert was a great experience for the City students.

Music for Youth is a national music education charity providing free access to performance and audience opportunities for young musicians across the UK. The charity’s proms saw 3,000 of the country’s brightest young musicians take to the stage over three nights at the Royal Albert Hall, between 23rd and 25th November, 2015.

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West Africa at The British Library – A Personal Experience

Peter Morrell, First Year BMus Student

On Tuesday 3^rd November 2015, the first year BMus students visited the British Library exhibition: ‘West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song.’ This was an illustrated history of how song and dance has been formed in West Africa. It also told us how the musical language generated in certain regions of West Africa has spread to and informed music in other parts of the world; it showed this across a broad historical chronology.

We were presented with a display of many different musical threads, all of them connected to West Africa. For instance, a history of ritual was told by some artefacts connected to tribal dances and religious ceremony, different types of drum and some costumes. Another thread told the varied stories of how men and women have interacted with music differently, for example with different roles in carnival dance teams; and also how gender narratives are being told by the British Library to its London-based audience of tourists, visitors and scholars. I have a recently-awakened interest in the origins of jazz and blues music. Parts of this exhibition told the story of African slaves and what interested me most was to see how, in the face of diaspora, the slaves kept their identity thanks to song. Listening to the music through headsets in the exhibition was fun!

After an hour and a half of walking around, most of the class could be discovered on cushions in the reading corner! We looked at some of the African-generated literature on the bookshelf. I was interested to rediscover the work of Chinua Achebe, distantly reminding me of an A-Level encounter with this author and with another portrait of Africa I had studied, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Then it was time for a fascinating discussion with Janet Topp Fargion, one of the two Curators of the exhibition, who spoke to us in depth about how she had spent four years creating this exhibition. It seems a huge range of people were involved in the consultation process.

This was a really quality field trip, giving us plenty of food for thought and so inspiring for our ‘Music in Oral Cultures’ module at City.

Middle Eastern Music Workshops with Rachel Beckles Willson

On Monday October 26th and Monday November 2nd 2015, we participated in a workshop as part of the Music Traditions of the Middle East module. The workshop was led by Professor Rachel Beckles Willson from Royal Holloway College and introduced us to the modal structures of Middle Eastern art music, focusing on Arabic maqam and Turkish makam. Rachel played the ‘ud lute and students brought their own instruments including lute, violins and guitar.

We found the workshop very enjoyable; it was a fun, new experience! It was good to be able to take part in the music rather than just read about it. Rachel was very patient and she played very nicely. It was useful to hear the quartertones first-hand on an authentic instrument, as we have no experience of this in our Western training. She taught us how to improvise around different maqams and their relative structures. It was fun to engage with the rest of the class with call and response exercises and melodic development activities. We enjoyed improvising away from sheet music, which was a more authentic experience than reading from the music as we are used to. Also, it was interesting to explore our own instruments in a different way, especially if these are stringed and non-fretted. The practice of singing before playing also deepened our understanding of the melodic and rhythmic modes. Overall, we think this has given us a good understanding of the musical culture and enriched our listening ability when researching this topic further.

The following week (November 9th), the focus moved to Iranian classical music and we were fortunate to be able to experience live music again, this time from santur (hammered dulcimer) player Saeid Kord Mafi who has recently moved to the UK from Iran to study for a PhD. He played examples from the classical repertoire and answered questions about life as a musician in Iran.

Charlotte Algar, Sarah Hashim and Marisa Oikawa