Leadership in New Music and Audio Technology (URF Grant, 2015–17)

As a result of a three-year grant from the University Research Fund (URF) at the University of Huddersfield, the Centre for Research in New Music initiated the Speculations in Sound International Research Network, bringing together a group of leading universities and institutes to carry out a high-profile programme of research collaboration. The network has supported opportunities for research exchange and partnership in various areas of new music, including composition, performance, music technology, improvisation, new sonic media, and musicology, including many of the projects outlined below.

The grant also enabled a series of key Creative Industry Partnerships, including projects with the Bozzini Quartet (Canada), Apartment House (UK), ELISION ensemble (Australia), the BlackBox Project, and the exclusive distribution partnership between CeReNeM's HCR CD label and NMC Recordings.
 

Sustainability in Strategic International Research Partnerships and establishment of the ‘Creative Coding Lab’ (URF Grant, 2016–20)

A follow-up to the 2015 URF grant, this University Research Fund award provided funding to create the Creative Coding Lab, which focuses on on software programming for creative purposes with projects covering applied psychoacoustics, 3D spatialisation, interactive analysis, and large database navigation and resynthesis, as well as a significant expansion of the Huddersfield Immersive Sound System (the HISS). Further funding has supported the continued staff exchanges of the Speculations in Sound international research network, support for the HCR industry partnership with NMC Records, and the development of new Creative Industry Partnerships with Ensemble Musikfabrik (Germany), Wet Ink (USA), and International Contemporary Ensemble (USA), plus partnerships with the Transit (Belgium) and Darmstadt (Germany) festivals for events connected to the Democracy in Music project.

Notable publications stemming from the grant include books/chapters with Oxford University Press (x2), Cambridge University Press (x3), Boydell & Brewer, Bloomsbury, and Routledge (x7); CDs with Kairos, Aeon, Neos, another timbre, emprientes DIGITALes, Winter & Winter, and SubRosa; articles in Organised Sound, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and in the proceedings of major international conferences (NIME, ICMC, AES, TCPM, RMA).

The two grants helped establish the infrastructure to support over £19m in external research grant applications, of which £6.4m was awarded, as well as numerous commissions, prizes, and awards for creative and practice-based work. 

Current projects

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Fluid Corpus Manipulation (FluCoMa)

A €2m Horizon 2020 European Research Council Consolidator Grant led by Prof Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, with Dr Alex Harker, Dr Gerard Roma, and Dr Owen Green

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Interactive Research in Music as Sound (IRiMaS)

A €2.5m Horizon 2020 European Research Council Advanced Grant led by Prof Michael Clarke, with Prof Robert Adlington, Prof Amanda Bayley (Bath Spa University), Dr Axel Roebel (IRCAM), Prof Jonathan Stock (University College Cork), Dr Frederic Dufeu, and Dr Keitaro Takahashi

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Creative Coding Lab (CCL)

An international research hub led by Dr Alex Harker and linked to Dr Hyunkook Lee’s Applied Psychoacoustics Lab. Software projects cover applied psychoacoustics, 3D spatialisation, interactive analysis, and large database navigation and resynthesis.

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John Cage and the Concert for Piano and Orchestra

A three-year £514k AHRC-funded project led by Prof Philip Thomas, with Prof Martin Iddon (University of Leeds), Dr Emily Payne, and Dr Christopher Melen

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ELISION Ensemble

Over a decade of residencies, research partnerships, publications, and international performances, radio broadcasts, and CD recordings

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Democracy in Music

Prof Robert Adlington, Prof Liza Lim and Dr Bryn Harrison. How can different musical practices instantiate different ideas of democracy? Which elements of democratic musical practices are open to democratic decision-making, and which are placed beyond democratic debate?

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Ensemble Musikfabrik

"Extended Bodies, Uncanny Beings." New works for Ensemble Musikfabrik and its Harry Partch instrumentation collection by Prof Aaron Cassidy and Dr Mary Bellamy, CD releases on HCR and Kairos

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The Electronic Music of Roberto Gerhard

Two-year £146k AHRC Research Grant, with an additional £100k in follow on funding, led by Prof Monty Adkins. Research into previously unknown works from the archive of the Catalonian composer Roberto Gerhard.

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Wet Ink – Smoke, Airs

New works for Wet Ink Ensemble (USA) by Prof Bryn Harrison, Prof Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, and Dr Kristina Wolfe. Performances and radio broadcasts in UK and USA, CD release on HCR.

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New Music Theatre in Europe, 1955–75

Professor Robert Adlington, in collaboration with Gianmario Borio (Università di Pavia), Giordano Ferrari (Université de Paris VIII), Dörte Schmidt (Universität der Künste Berlin) and Daniela Tortora (Università di Roma La Sapienza)

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International Contemporary Ensemble Re.Co.Lab

International Contemporary Ensemble (USA) is CeReNeM's "Virtual Ensemble-in-Residence" in 2020–21

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Being Time

Prof Bryn Harrison, with Dr Richard Glover (Wolverhampton) and Jennie Gottschalk. The project promotes the participatory qualities of the listener in the act of music-making, and defines a language for discussing temporality that develops solely out of experiential responses.

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Musical Multimedia

Prof Monty Adkins, Dr Julio d’Escriván, Dr Geoff Cox, Dr Ian Gibson, Stewart Worthy. The Musical Multimedia project unites research interests that involve sound-led film and visual art.

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HISSTools

Prof Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Dr Alex Harker. Powerful yet lightweight, modular and accessible open source software tools to address specific issues related to the composition, performance and presentation of electronic music, including the widely used HISSTools Impulse Response Toolbox

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Quatuor Bozzini

Bozzini Quartet (Montreal) with Prof Philip Thomas, piano, and Sarah-Jane Summers, fiddle. Works by Prof Monty Adkins, Prof Bryn Harrison, and Dr Mary Bellamy. Performances in the UK, Norway, and Canada. CD recordings on HCR.

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TaCEM

TaCEM: Technology and Creativity in Electroacoustic Music,  A three-year £312k AHRC-funded project led by Prof Michael Clarke, with Prof Peter Manning (Durham University) and Dr Frédéric Dufeu

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Saturated. The Rest.

Prof Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Sylvain Pohu (CA), Patrick Saint-Denis (CA), Rodrigo Constanzo (ES-US). Performing (with) technology: live audio processing, musical interfaces, interactive video and audio, robotics.

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Judaica: Embodied Laboratory for Songwork

Dr Ben Spatz. A £225k AHRC funded project led by Dr Ben Spatz, exploring new intersections of songwork and scholarship

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Windows into Worlds

Original artistic research from Dr Ben Spatz's Judaica project alongside contemporary performance-based films by VestAndPage (Germany) and Studio Matejka (Poland)

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Material translation

Former Prof Liza Lim, with Prof Eric Clarke and Dr Mark Doffman (Oxford), Prof Tim Ingold (Aberdeen), Ensemble Musikfabrik, Opera Cologne, Hellerau European Centre for the Arts, Cikada, Arditti String Quartet.

Past projects

Noise in and as music

Dr Aaron Einbond and Prof Aaron Cassidy. This project explores the thoughts of those who work with noise in all of its many forms

The Stratified Voice

Prof Aaron Cassidy. Exploration of vocal techniques emerging from a stratification of the physical components of sound production in the voice

Pragmatic Concerns in Mixed Music

Prof Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. An exploration of the cross-pollinating practices of the contemporary techno-fluid generation

Hearing is the work

Former Huddersfield Research Professor Peter Ablinger, in examinations of the conventions of listening practice

Creative processes and collaboration

Creative processes and collaboration: how can these can be negotiated and fostered between composers and performers?