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PGCR 2020: Our fifth cohort

PGCR 2020: Our fifth cohort

The Picture Gallery Composer-in-Residence Scheme is a ground-breaking residency in which successful student composers from the Department of Music will have their musical responses to the Picture Gallery and some of its wonderful paintings performed by an invited ensemble each year.

This residency is a professional development programme for music creators of the Department of Music to receive specialist, industry-standard workshop sessions and tutorials, working collaboratively with invited artists, ensembles and tutors to create new works that are premiered as part of the International Concert Series. 

These new compositions are the result of a special collaboration between the College’s Art Curator Dr Laura MacCulloch and Nathan James Dearden, a College Composer, Conductor of the New Music Collective and Performance Manager at the Department of Music.

Project overview for 2020

Now in its fifth year, we set the task for ten sound artists/composers/ music creators from across a range of genres to create music and sound installations through a collaborative and immersive professional development programme exploring the relationship between live, recorded and DAW-produced music. 

This year the selected music creators will be tasked to create a sound-installation (variable duration) inspired by and for short-term installation in our Picture Gallery. Each selected music creator will receive tuition and advice from Residency Lead Tutor, acclaimed composer, performer and sound designer Dr Tom Parkinson. Music creators will be tasked to create a new music landscape through their own DAW, and have the opportunity to work with musicians from both New Music Collective and New Voices Consort if they choose to involve either a live element to the new work or pre-recorded elements. 

Our Digital Installations

As part of the presentation of these new works composed with pieces of the art collection and the Picture Gallery itself in mind, we hosted four Digital Installations in April 2021, as part of the College's International Concert Series. You can catch-up on these world premiere performances, with an insight into the scheme and the individual works on the Department of Music YouTube channel

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