A Second Visit to Oldenburg University

I was invited back to Oldenburg University's music department at the end of October 2012 for a week on the Erasmus scheme to do some further observation and teaching. The second visit was useful as you notice different things on a return, and I also went to different classes. The music department at Oldenburg is focused on training teachers, and students can either do a BA over 3 years, or the Masters over 5 years which you need to do to become a teacher. The course structure is still a little hazy for me but seems to have some compulsory modules (such as theory etc) and the rest are optional and decided by individual tutors. Students can take a module or course without being assessed in it - indeed you might have a whole class who are not being assessed. The class sizes I saw were mostly quite small - say 5-15 - but the theory one was more like 25. This time I observed a clear focus on developing aural skills, and most of the classes I saw were very practical and quite demanding. In the Solfege class you had to do the hand signs as well as sing. I also observed an excellent class focused on how to  train young singers which also including dance and movement.
     Other classes included Katzenmusik (Cat's music) taught by a professional percussionist which was excellent, covering issues of form, texture, timbre, improvisation, and aesthetics. The class I saw was using wine glasses and glass bowls to create an orchestra of glass, and creating simple scores to control the semi-improvised music. The theory class I saw was very inspiring and taught with great enthusiasm and verve. It was quite a traditional approach but the students clearly got a lot from the session. The teaching materials were very clear and logical.
    My own teaching was composition-focused, although I also talked about Ligeti and Bartok and their relationship. I tried to take quite a practical approach with my teaching and get students to try out compositional ideas in the class - I got the impression that this wasn't usually the case in composition teaching here. I also presented a colloquium on my own composition and played part of my Saxophone Quartet. I had also composed Eleven Haiku after Cage for piano specifically for the Colloquium which was well played by Roberto Reale. It was quite interesting to interact with the general public and one of the audience suggested that my music was not very good to relax to (I had to agree). This prompted a more general discussion of the nature and function of contemporary music and how to understand it. It seems to me that one can only develop an understanding of any music through deep, thoughtful and repeated listening - and having an open mind to new ideas.
    My other observations of the week are that the tutors here seem to have more freedom over what and how they teach in their modules - there appears to be less of the obsessive QA culture here (although I may have had a false impression). There is also less of the sense that tutors are aware of the overall structure of the course and how everything fits together. I also noticed that they had just appointed 3 new lecturers which suggests funding here is pretty good in comparison to the situation in the UK.

Editing a Journal for the first time

I ran a one-day conference on the later music of Ligeti in March of this year at London University, and had arranged for the papers to be published by Contemporary Music Review (this has just come out, click Ligeti's Later Music). As I hadn't edited a journal before I was both excited and rather nervous. I asked a friend of mine with some experience of book editing for advice, and what he said was very helpful - he said that you need to be quite firm with contributors and if you feel something is not quite quite right, then you must say something sooner rather than later. It is perhaps too easy to try to be too relaxed and laissez-faire. I also decided to ask one of the presenters to be a co-editor to lessen the load - it was a good idea as you have someone to look over your own contribution.
    The main issue was that we had been given relatively a tight amount of space for each article, and quite understandably contributors wanted to provide full examples which often went beyond this allocated space (the journal was very understanding and allowed more space to accommodate this). Another issue was concerning footnotes and references, and what might be the optimal length for these. I had successful (if slightly protracted) discussions about reducing these in one case where the footnotes gradually expanded to become nearly as long as the article. This is perhaps more a matter of style, which I think is the editor's responsibility. Another issue was getting colleagues to get the final copy in on time (I suspect that this is common)- so it is important to set a deadline well before the final deadline given by the journal. We also had a delay caused by the copyright fees charged by the composer's publisher which seemed rather large given likely sales, and beyond the relatively modest budget. It seemed a little curious that a publisher would want to potentially jeopardise the publication of an academic journal covering one of their composers. This was thankfully resolved by the publisher of the journal and it was a relief (and a joy!) to finally see a hard copy of the issue. I have learned one thing through the process, and that is that editing a journal issue takes a lot more time, effort, and emotional energy than you would think.

Ligeti Conference March 2012: some reflections

I organised a conference of Ligeti's later music on 30th March at Senate House (in association with the Institute of Music Research - and with their support) which has taken up a fair bit of my time over the last few months. This is the first major confernce I have organised and it seemed to be a success judging by responses received. I was particularly pleased to see the number of speakers and delegates that had travelled from US, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Holland, Hungary, and Norway. The conference was mainly a series of papers plus a lecture recital by Ian Pace, a parallel analysis session for composers (led by Peter Wiegold) and a chamber 'performance' of Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique (we didn't quite manage 100 metronomes but there were two that seemed particularly persistent at the end).
    What was valuable at the conference was making contact with Ligeti scholars who one had read but not met, and being socialise with them before and after the conference. On reflection I think there should have been a round table session at the end (there wasn't time in the schedule) and it would have been good to have had questions after each speaker. I had allowed 30 minutes for each speaker to include 5 minutes for questions, but the reality was that the full 30 minutes was usually taken up with the papers (which is quite understandable) - and there was little slack in the day. There were also technical issues which soaked up time - almost inevitable when so many different computers were being used (our technical support was excellent and it is absolutely essential to have someone good to cover this). I liked the range of our speakers which showed many different approaches to the nature of the conference paper. At previous conferences I often feel that the papers were not really designed to be read out, but rather needed to be read as an article which can be quite tedious.
    There is a general orthodoxy to read papers at conferences which can be quite a challenge for the listener (I whish I had the confidence not to do this myself - our keynote speaker Richard Steinitz avoided reading out a paper, which made what he had to say very engaging). If I had to do this again I would allow more time for the papers and include a round table session at the end. I didn't do a general call for papers (on helpful advice from a colleague) and simply invited who I thought would have the most interesting things to say about Ligeti's music. I think this worked well - student researchers have plenty of other opportunities to present their work. One final thought is that it does take a lot of time and energy to organise - so bear that in mind if you feel the urge.
see Ligeti Conference London 2012  for full details - the papers will be published in Contemporary Music Review shortly.

A Scottish Ligeti Trip (Hamburg Concerto)

In late January I went up to Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh) to give two pre-concert talks on Ligeti's last major work the Hamburg Concerto for Horn and Chamber Orchestra performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (they also played Ligeti's Chamber Concerto which I didn't hear). I was impressed by the quality of the playing of the SCO as this is an extremely demanding and complex work. The excellent soloist was Alec Frank-Gemmill (on both French and Natural Horn) and the conductor Robin Ticciati showed a thorough understanding of the score. The work is curious for two reasons: it is in seven brief movements which are often divided up into smaller sections making it 14 in total; and it makes extensive use of the strange and beautiful tunings of the upper harmonics of the natural horn. As one goes up the harmonic series, the notes gradually deviate from the equally tempered scale of the piano, sometimes to an alarming degree. In places the natural horn quartet in the orchestra (parts which are almost as demanding as the soloist's part) are all in different keys - F,E, Bb, and D. Ligeti combines the 'out-of-tune' notes from each horn to generate quite alien-sounding harmonies that are disturbing but also beautiful. It seems to me that it would be almost impossible to be able to calculate the precise results of these combinations, but there does seem to be a strange logic in the progressions - for example in the 'Choral' in the second movement. The fourth movement is also quite interesting in the way that it combines elements of minimalism and serialism in quite an original manner.
     I also ran a Ligeti study day in Edinburgh which included a question and answer section from the soloist and conductor who explained some of the challenges of the work. These included the problems of playing natural horns high up and hitting notes that one would usually avoid (ie the oddly tuned harmonics). Robin talked about the importance of having an image of each movement in your head before working with the orchestra, and the importance of avoiding listening to other people's recordings. I felt that the audience were quite positive towards the concerto, and they said that they would have liked to hear it twice in the concert to help their understanding. This is an excellent point as it is difficult for even experienced contemporary music listeners to make sense of a new work on one hearing (whatever they might say!).
   At the end of the day I got the participants to create and perform their own compositions based on Ligeti's ideas and techniques (see http://www.sco.org.uk/experience/blog/2012/01/exploring-ligeti  for pictures) which produced some rather interesting and unusual work. It is daunting doing this kind of activity if you are an amateur musician (or just a music-lover) and I felt everyone put a lot of effort into making the best pieces possible.