The overall research ethos of the School of Music at UEA is to investigate ‘music as practice’: we aim to explore and uncover various aspects of music as it engages with the world around us, engages us with the world, and subsequently reveals the world to us in its multiplicity – both past and present. Our research approaches are to a great extent interdisciplinary, drawing on, for example, philosophy and literary criticism, and firmly established in musical performance and composition with a solid grounding in all practical aspects of musical activity.
Projects
- Applied Research in Aesthetics in the Digital Arts
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Period: 1999-ongoing
Director: Simon Waters
- Sonic Arts Research Archive
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Period: 1999-ongoing
Director: Simon Waters
- Metatrumpet
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Period: ongoing
Director: Jonathan Impett
- CURSUS
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Period: 2003-2006
Director: David Chadd
- Britten Thematic Catalogue
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Period: 2007-2009
Director: Sharon Choa
The School enjoys a vibrant, innovative, and creative research environment with activity on a high level spanning from research in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music based on performance and analysis, through early twentieth century music aesthetics and criticism, to contemporary aesthetics of electroacoustic music. There are several ongoing research projects in the School, many funded by research councils. These include ARiADA (Applied Research in Aesthetics in the Digital Arts), which is designed to coordinate the UEA Studio's research into the relationship between compositional strategies and aesthetics in electroacoustic music and in other media/signifying practices. Another project is the design of the instrument the ‘Metatrumpet’, a central aim of which is to permit a close and dynamic relationship between performer, instrument and musical material, whether a computer-stored "score" or constructed in real-time from performance data. Further projects include SARA (Sonic Arts Research Archive) which is an online reference to composers and artists working with new technology and sound; the CURSUS project which makes data from sources of medieval Latin liturgy available on the Web; and the EPSRC funded project entitled ‘Interactivity, Ubiquitous Technology and Music Performance’ (under their Culture and Creativity programme) which focuses on the intersection between music and computer science. Most recently, the School has received major funds under the AHRC Resource Enhancement Scheme to develop a web-based thematic catalogue of the music of Benjamin Britten, over a period of three years, in collaboration with the Britten-Pears Library.
Our staff has a broad variety of research interests ranging from historiography and reception history, nineteenth-century music (performance and aesthetics), aspects of music and modernity, the social, political and institutional history of music, to music and ethics, music and multimedia, music in popular culture, and music and improvisation.
Cesar Villavicencio's MIDI contrabass recorder
