Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr John Levack Drever BMus (Bangor), MMus (UEA), PhD (Dartington)

John Levack Drever has been lecturing in composition at Goldsmiths since 2003. He studied Music at the University of Wales, Bangor (1992-95), followed by postgraduate study in Electroacoustic Music Composition at the University of East Anglia (1995-6). In 2001 he was awarded a PhD from Dartington College of Arts for a program of research titled 'Phonographies: Practical and Theoretical Explorations into Composing with Disembodied Sound'. Following his PhD he became a research assistant for the Digital Crowd (University of Plymouth) co-ordinating Sounding Dartmoor, a public soundscape study of Dartmoor (2000-2). From 2003-04 he was an ACE/AHRB Arts and Science Research Fellow with Centre for Computational Creativity, City University exploring ‘electronic music performance interfaces that learn from their users’. During the autumn semester of 2007 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Critical Intermedia Laboratory, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Before arriving at Goldsmiths Drever was a visiting lecturer for Exeter University, University of Plymouth, City University (London) and Dartington College of Arts, lecturing in Music, Visual Arts, Performance Writing, Media Arts and Media Lab Arts.

Drever was co-founder (1998) and currently chair of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (a regional affiliate of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology) for whom he chaired Sound Practice: the 1st UKISC Conference on sound, culture and environments in 2001 at Dartington and Sound Practice 2006 at Goldsmiths. In 2004 he was elected onto the board of directors of Sonic Arts Network becoming its final chair in 2008 leading into the merger with the British Music Information Centre, Contemporary and Music Network to create Sound and Music. During 2006-7 he co-chaired the Artist Review Series: Immersivity, Art, Architecture, Sound and Ecology, live art garden initiative.

Academic qualifications

BMus (Bangor), MMus (UEA), PhD (Dartington)

Selected publications

Publications
Book Chapters
2007: 'Topophonophilia: a study on the relationship between the sounds of Dartmoor and the people who live there', in Carlyle, A. (ed.) Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment in Artistic Practice, Double Entendre & CRISAP.
2007: 'Nostophonics: Approaches to Grasping Everyday Sounds from A British Perspective', in Bandt, R., Duffy, M. and McKinnen, D. (eds.), Hearing Places, an Anthology of Interdisciplinary Writings, Cambridge Scholars Press.
2008: ‘Sound: Effect – Object – Event: endemic and exogenous electroacoustic sound practices in theatre’, in Brown, R. (ed.), Reader in Theatre Sound and Aurality, Palgrave. [forthcoming]
2008: ‘A case study on the soundscapes of rural England at the opening of the 21st Century’, in Cartografías de la Escucha, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. [forthcoming]
2009: 'Soundwalking: creative listening beyond the concert hall', in Saunders, J. (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music, Ashgate. [forthcoming]

Editing
2001: Sound Practice Proceedings, UK and Ireland Soundscape Community.
2007: Editor of Earshot 5, Noise: Debates, Strategies and Methodologies, and curator of accompanying CD, Disappearing Soundmarks.

Selected Journal Publications & Conference Proceedings
2000: 'The exploitation of tangible ghosts: conjectures on soundscape recording and its appropriation in sound art', Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology, Cambridge University Press.
2002: 'Soundscape Composition: the convergence of ethnography and acousmatic music', Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology, Cambridge University Press.
2005: 'Electroacoustic Performance Interfaces that Learn from Their Users', collaborative paper with Andrés Melo & Geraint Wiggins, Proceedings, International Computer Music Conference, Barcelona.
2005: 'Topophonophilia: a study on the relationship between the sounds of Dartmoor and the people who live there', CD of Proceedings, Twelfth International Congress on Sound and Vibration, Congress Center of Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon.

Reviews
2008: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture, BarryBlesser & Linda-RuthSalter. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2007), in the Journal of Environmental Psychology 28(Elsevier, 2008), pp. 301–303.

Invited Talks, Key Notes and Conference Presentations
2007: 'Soundscapes and acoustic ecology - origins and prospects' at Sounder
Spaces, organised by the Mayor of London, Julian Huxley Lecture Theatre, London Zoo.
2007: 'Soundwalking: methods of listening in situ to the city', keynote speaker and soundwalk leader for an ESRC Research Seminar Series on ‘Rethinking the urban experience: the sensory production of place’, University of Salford.
2007: ‘Soundscape sensibilities as expressed and betrayed in composition’, Beyond Text?: Synaesthetic and Sensory Practices in Anthropology, 10th Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival Of Ethnographic Film, University Of Manchester.
2007: ‘Topophonophilia: the rapport between place, space, sentiment and sound’, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong; The Department of Geography & Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
2008: ‘Topophonophilia and Topophonophobia’, at ‘Cartografías de la Escucha’. Sonido y lugar, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
2008: ‘Ochlophonics Hong Kong: everyday sound practices within the crowd’ in the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities as part of ‘Music, Sound, and the Music, Sound, and the Re-configuration of Public and Private Space’, University of Cambridge.
2008: ‘The sound of cattle grids’ at ‘So Far… arts, spatialisation and memory’, Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath.

Selected CD Publications
2002: Sounding Dartmoor, SpaceX & Liquid Press, i-dat.
2003: Phonographies: Glasgow, Frankfurt, Exeter, Sound-Marked (SM03-01CD).
2006: Cattle Grids of Dartmoor, Pataphonic (SM06-05CD).
2007: “Phonographies of Glasgow: Underground” (1999), Drift: Resonant Cities, co-curated by Robert H. King, New Media Scotland.

Presentations and exhibitions

Recent Performances & Exhibitions
2004-08: Ochlophonic Study: Hong Kong – soundscape composition

• Sound Practice 2006, Goldsmiths, 2006.
• Music, Sound, and the Music, Sound, and the Re-configuration of Public and Private Space, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, 2008.
• Musée de Grenoble, France, at the international colloquium, Faire une ambiance / Creating an Atmosphere, organised by the "Ambiances Architecturales et Urbaines" laboratory, a mixed research unit (UMR) affiliated to CNRS/Ministére de la Culture (Architecture)/Ecoles Nationales Supérieures d'Architecture of Grenoble and Nantes, 2008.

2005: Close to the Literal – 8 channel text-sound composition in collaboration with Lawrence Upton

• Postgraduate Conference, Goldsmiths, 2005.
• E-poetry conference, Birckbeck College, 2005.
• EXPO Manchester, Sonic Arts Network, University of Manchester, 2006.

2005: Airborne Trial – sound installation of recordings made in Orford Ness in collaboration with Louise K Wilson, Regeneration, St Mary-At-The-Quay, WAG Visual Arts Ipswich, Ipswich.

2005: Cattle Grids of Dartmoor – a soundscape:

• Radio Clásica, Spain, 2007.
• Art, Lifestyle and Globalisation, organised by PVA MediaLab, Tate Modern, 2007.
• Atrium Sound Space, College of Santa Fe campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 18 January - 28 February, 2008.
• Here and Now, BBC Radio 3, 2008
• Late Junction, BBC Radio 3, 2008.

2006: -scape – a site-specific dance work based on Goodwin Sands, in collaboration with Tony Thatcher and Emma Redding:

• Kingsdown Beach, Kent, 2006.
• Great Hall, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2006.
• Art, Lifestyle and Globalisation, organised by PVA MediaLab, Tate Modern, 2007.
• Shunt, London, 2007.

2007: Verbal Iterations – in collaboration with Lawrence Upton:

• Immersivity, Art, Architecture, Sound and Ecology, live art garden initiative, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2007.
• e-poetry 2007, Le Divan du Monde, Paris, 2007.
• Sonic Arts Network Expo, Plymouth UK, 2007.

2007: In the footsteps of Koch – co-curator with Peter Cusack of a listening space at Sounder Spaces, including -scape by Drever, Bartlett Room, London Zoo.

2007: audience: hearing – a sound installation in collaboration with Rachel Gomme, commissioned by Arts Council England:

• Enter_Unknown Territories, Abby Taxi, Cambridge, 2007.
• Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester, 2007.
• 4’33”, Magazin 4 Kunstverein, Bregenz, Austria, 2007.

2008 –stance – in collaboration with Ina Dokmo (dancer) and Tony Thatcher (choreographer).

• Shunt, London, 2008.
• Turteatern, Stockholm, 2008.