News from the Department of Music

Alex Ross of The New Yorker called Goldsmiths Music academic Tim Rutherford-Johnson's book Music After the Fall: Modern Composition and Culture since 1989 the best music book of 2017.

Writing about his favourite things of 2017, Alex wrote "This remarkable feat of synthesis and analysis, about which I'll write in The New Yorker in the near future, has fundamentally changed my vision of the music of our time. No one who seriously follows contemporary music should be without it".

PhD student Emma Winston (aka Deerful)'s album Peach was included in The Observer readers' hidden gems of 2017.

They said that the album is "a blissful, bleepy wonder that nonetheless feels like the most human record of the year".

Joe Newman has been elected to the London Regional Committee of the Musician's Union.

Simon McVeigh was elected president of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) for 2018-21.

The RMA is Britain's principal learned society for music research.

Richard Greenan is the new General Manager of NX Records.

Alongside heading up NX Records, Richard is the founder of Kit Records: an experimental/DIY label that he has been running since 2012. Richard also presents and curates a weekly show on NTS Radio.

Iris Garrelfs won a Warden's Annual Public Engagement Award for her work on Longplayer Day 2017: the 12-hour nomadic, cross-disciplinary music festival celebrating the partnership between Goldsmiths and the Longplayer Trust.

Barley Norton was appointed to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) sub-panel for Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies.

Speaking about the appointment, Barley said "The Music Department's consistent representation on research assessment panels since 1996 is testament to the enduring significance and uniqueness of music research at Goldsmiths".

Ian Gardiner 

Head of Dept Ian Gardiner is part of BBC Radio’s Third Programme's history. The series, Power of 3, is part of a series curated by media historian Prof. David Hendy that illustrates significant moments in BBC Radio 3's 70 year history. Have a listen on their website. 

Throughout the autumn term, 2016, we're running an exciting programme of events with some big names in the music industry.

On Friday 4 November Thurston Moore, David Toop and Tania Chen took over Goldsmiths' Great Hall to give a performance of explosive improvisations.

Each are celebrated solo musicians however the trio came together following David and Tania's performance at an All Tomorrow's Parties show earlier this year. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore happened to be at the gig and subsequently invited Tania to play with him at one of his own shows.

Fast forward four months and the three have recorded a studio album and look forward to playing together at Goldsmiths, a place, according to alumna Chen, that is celebrated for its strong experimental energy.

This term also sees the return of the Department of Music's annual Popular Music Intervention and Masterclass series.

Simon Deacon, Director of Popular Music Performance said:"This year we are excited to bring six masterclass events featuring both artists and industry professionals, alongside the NX Records short course, From Music to Industry, to bring current thinking and experience in the music industry to all Goldsmiths students." Guests include Jessie Ware, Mica Levi and Ghostpoet.

Silvia Rosani

PhD student Silvia Rosani's project White Masks, a collaboration with cellist Esther Saladin, has been awarded a grant from the Institute of Musical Research (IMR). White Masks is a cycle for cello, live electronics and resonating masks, followed by an interactive installation. The project revolves around the theme of loss and community and will have a performance at Goldsmiths in 2017.

Kia Coates

2015 MA Music (Ethnomusicology) alumnus Marco Canepari and business partner Kia Coates won the music category of the 2016 Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise after pitching their online magazine to a panel of judges. Rhythm Passport, is a website and gig guide for open-minded, curious, and fun-loving people who want to discover music from around the world. With a core aim of spreading their passion for world music, Marco and Kia are aiming to change perceptions and to reach new audiences while supporting and nurturing the UK's world music scene.

Niall McCallum

MMus Studio Composition alumnus Niall McCallum has recently celebrated the 2nd anniversary of his digital audio production business, ModeAudio. The business has already worked with some of the biggest names in music technology, creating digital sound content for Native Instruments, Image-Line and Bitwig, amongst others. He still regularly uses some of the Max/MSP patches he made whilst completing Michael Young's Interactive and Generative Music class to make sounds for his products.

Emmanuel Spinelli

Congratulations to Emmanuel Spinelli for being awarded his PhD with the thesis title: Composing with Schizo-narratives and Sonic Chorographies: The Territory of Disembodied Voices and the Perception of Acousmatic Identities

Sarah Westwood

Congratulations to MPhil/PhD student in Composition Sarah Westwood, who has been awarded a Bliss Trust Scholarship to study in California, under Katharina Rosenberg. Whilst there, she will participate in a collaboration between UCSD/CaliT2 Initiative (with guest residency Zurich ICST). Alongside this, Sarah will also be carrying out practical research with dancers at Body Weather Laboratory/Lightning Shadow in LA. Sarah has also been selected to collaborate as a composer in The Choreographers and Composers Lab at Phoenix Dance Theatre, Leeds, which is supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and led by Sharon Watson and Ken Hesketh.

Alexis Bennett

Congratulations to Associate lecturer and PhD student Alexis Bennett for securing a British Library Edison Fellowship. He will be undertaking research throughout the 2015-16 academic year in the BL's prestigious Sound Archive. His current work is focusing on the archive of sound and manuscript materials relating to the composer Francis Chagrin. 

Silvia Rosani

Congratulations to PhD student Silvia Rosani, who has been awarded the Francis Chagrin Award. Her research strives to establish an innovative relationship between text and music. 

John Baily

 has just published his latest book on ‘War, Exile and the Music of Afghanistan: The Ethnographer’s Tale’ under the SOAS Musicology Series, published by Ashgate.

Dr Lisa Busby

 has just had a chapter published in Preserving Popular Music Heritage Do-it-Yourself, Do-it-Together ed. Sarah Baker. More information can be found on the Taylor and Francis website.

Over the summer, Dr Busby also played the Supernormal Festival with The Nomadic Female DJ Troupe and was part of the Electra Residency at Wysing Arts.

Dr Stephen Graham

 had an article “Justin Timberlake's Two-Part Complementary Forms: Groove, Extension, and Maturity in Twenty-First- Century Popular Music”, printed in American Music, Vol. 32, No. 4, Published by: University of Illinois Press

Dr Tom Perchard

 latest book, ‘After Django: Making Jazz In Postwar France’ was published by University of Michigan Press to critical acclaim. This is the first study to focus on jazz in postwar France, exploring the ways that French musicians and critics received and remade an American music according to their own cultural concerns.

Elena Artamonova

Elena Artamonova, a viola player who has just received her PhD from us, is releasing a CD on Toccata Classics including music she unearthed as part of her PhD research (studying under the late Prof Alexander Ivashkin, to whom the CD is dedicated). She says this: 'Among others, I was fortunate to discover a previously unknown sonata for viola and piano by the Russian-American composer Alexander Grechaninov and his other works (I performed this sonata at my PhD final concert). This CD is released in commemoration of 150th anniversary of Grechaninov’s birth and as a tribute to Professor Ivashkin (1948-2014), an outstanding musician and academic, whose exceptional understanding and inspiration guided my research into unknown Russian Music.'

Share Music

Share Music - Sweden and have received a joint grant from Act Digitally for the development of a project involving Goldsmiths lecturers Patricia Alessandrini, Freida Abtan, and Mick Grierson, and Peter Ljungstrand and Gunnar Oledal from the Interactive Institute. This project, entitled Mondgewächse, will employ interactive technologies for an audiovisual performance combining members of the Share Music and Gageego! ensemble. It will be premièred in October 2014 at the Gothenburg Konserthuset during the Göteborg Art Sounds (GAS) festival. Act Digitally is a project for digital art development of cultural institutions and cultural NGOs. The project is supported by the cultural committee of Region Västra Götaland and the Swedish Arts Council and will be closed by a Nordic conference in October 2014.

Rodrigo Barbosa Camacho

Congratulations to BMus Music student Rodrigo Barbosa Camacho who was selected as the winner of the 4th Student Competition at the British Composer Awards for his work American Candy - What the hell is Yellow no. 6?!? His work was performed by Sarah-Jane Bradley at the opening of the awards ceremony at London’s Goldsmiths' Hall.

Professor Roger Redgate

Professor Roger Redgate is to release a new CD, with two versions of his Concerto for Improvising Soloist and Two Ensembles. More information here

Dr Berta Joncus

Dr Berta Joncus will be presenting her current research at an international symposium, Enlightened Princesses, at Hampton Court Palace, co-organised by The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London.

For an October broadcast of BBC Radio 3's 'Building a Library', Dr Joncus will present a programme on Mozart's opera, Abduction from the Seraglio

Prof Simon McVeigh

Prof Simon McVeigh and Dr Berta Joncus were featured interviewees on the recent three-part BBC Television 4 series, 'Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in 18th Century'. Goldsmiths staff and students can view this series on the library's e-resource 'Box of Broadcasts'

Prof Alexander Ivashkin

The Department of Music is very saddened by the loss of our much loved colleague, teacher and friend, Professor Alexander Ivashkin, who died on Friday 31 January following a battle with cancer.

Nick Newland

Congratulations to Visiting Tutor Nick Newland, who was one of three winners of this years Peake Awards. This award, administered by Goldsmiths Learning Enhancement Unit (GLEU), rewards learning and teaching excellence at Goldsmiths. Nominated by students, and verified by a panel of experts, it showcases best practice.
More info

Sebastian Laskowski

Yet more congratulations, this time to MMus student Sebastain Laskowski, who has been shortlisted for the Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme.

James Bulley

Sound and Music will be touring 'Living Symphonies' to Forestry Commission Sites across England, with music composed by PhD student James Bulley and Daniel Jones. More information about Living Symphonies.

A collaboration between Goldsmiths and Seian University of Art and Design, investigates through painting, sound art and theoretical illumination, issues arising from Aristotle’s separation of the natural world from man-made objects. This project held two exhibitions, a symposium and a Dance-Sound-Visual Art collaborative show in February and March 2013. 

Tom Perchard

Tom Perchard has just won the the 2012 R. Serge Denisoff Award for best article to appear in the journal Popular Music and Society (Taylor & Francis). The article was called ‘Hugues Panassié contra Walter Benjamin: Bodies, Masses, and the Iconic Jazz Recording in Mid-Century France'. A full article on Tom Perchard and the R. Serge Denisoff Award.

British Composer Awards

Acting Head of Department Ian Gardiner and Visiting Tutor Matthew Herbert were shortlisted in this years British Composer Awards. More information about the British Composer Awards.

Confucius Institute

Goldsmiths Confucius Institute and the Department of Music presented 'Always Remembered', on Monday 5 November in Cadogan Hall -  a musical event that celebrated the modern composers and lyricists of China, previously staged in Beijing and featuring original works by Li Lanqing. Performances featured the Goldsmiths Sinfonia and Choir as well as a delegation from the Central Conservatory of Music from Beijing. 
For more information, visit the Always Remembered event page.

Music Week 2012

Music Week 2012 ran from 1st - 6th October, with a recital by Andrew Zolinsky on Wednesday 3rd, Sinfonia and Chorus on Friday 5th, and Popular Music and Music Computing on Saturday 6th in the Laban Church.

Messiah: Oratorio in the Community

Messiah: Oratorio in the Community was a project with GoldMusNet to bring area schoolchildren into projects that fulfil National Curriculum key stage learning targets and expose them to an HEI environment. A new film has been made of this project, to view the video of this project, click