Composers @ the RMA Research Student Conference 2014

Postgraduate composer Alex Glyde-Bates tells us about attending the RMA Research Student Conference 2014 with fellow student Máté Szigeti:

On a crisp January Monday morning two bleary-eyed composers, still recovering from the turkey-fuelled festivities of the Christmas break, stand in the impressive atrium of the University of Birmingham’s Music Department. Nervously huddled alongside our fellow delegates to the Royal Musicological Society’s Research Student’s Conference, we are ushered into the recently opened Elgar Concert Hall where we received a brief welcome before being sent off to get stuck right in to the first day’s proceedings.

For Máté and I, our conference would be dominated by Tuesday’s daylong composition workshops, however, it did gave us two days to sit in on papers from our fellow delegates from not only the UK, but around the world. While it was a shame that most of the papers dealing with contemporary music were scheduled alongside the workshops, this did provide us with an excellent opportunity to expand our horizons by sitting on papers from Mallorcan bagpipes to David Cameron and The Smiths.

Tuesday’s composition workshops were a great experience for all the graduate composers present. Chaired by the Experimental music legend, composer Howard Skempton, and performed by members of the warm and wonderful Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, we heard an array of pieces in different styles and aesthetics, all of the highest quality. The workshops were a great forum for not only garnering the insightful thoughts of Howard Skempton, but also to hear the pieces twice, rehearse sections and to get individual feedback from the performers on notation, techniques and advice for the future.

On top of the workshops and the papers the conference provided a perfect space for meeting fellow PhD candidates from around the country (and beyond).  From friendly discussions over the wine reception, to sharing twitter names in the coffee breaks, the conference was an unparalleled opportunity to meet future colleagues in, and outside, of our usual fields. All I can say is that I’m looking forward to travelling to Bristol in 2015 for the next instalment.