Wednesday 9 January, 12-4pm (CM.107)
We focus on play in Lab 20, with visiting composer Michael Wolters considering interdisciplinary approaches that stem from playful approaches to ideas and concepts. In the second half, James Saunders will present some work that deals with playfulness in performance, showing a recent piece and trying out some new ideas.
12-2pm | CM107 | Michael Wolters – Play Time
In this session I’m going to talk about my love of playing with ideas and concepts. Over the years this approach has defined my position as an interdisciplinary composer who has every form of expression at their disposal and is not bound by the limitations of individual genres.
I was born in 1971 in Mönchengladbach and grew up in Niederkrüchten, a small German village on the Dutch border. After working as a care worker in a children’s home and a runner at several theatres in Germany and England I studied Applied Theatre Studies at Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany and Composition with Patric Standford and Christopher Fox in Huddersfield (BA, MA) and with Vic Hoyland in Birmingham (PhD).
My works have been performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the ISCM World Music Days in Manchester (with Isobel Bowler), Spitalfields Festival (with Isobel Bowler), the Barbican Centre, Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Tate Liverpool and various other concert halls, festivals, supermarkets, art galleries, shoe shops, theatres, banks, opera houses, in cafes, on beaches, in cinemas, on the radio, on TV; in the UK, Germany, lots of other European places, in Russia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. I work in close relationship with the German theatre artist Marcus Droß and I’m a founding member of the artists’ collective New Guide to Opera. Since 2009 I have been Deputy Head of Composition at Birmingham Conservatoire.
2-4pm | CM107 | James Saunders – Compulsion and Play
I will present a recent piece that uses cueing systems in which players act under compulsion, working with association, memory and cognitive load. We will also try out some new ideas for pieces I’m developing at the moment to see if they work.
