December 2020: on the 5-6 December the Nottingham Forum for Artistic Research (NottFAR) are hosting a symposium in which I’m giving a paper on Dance Maze. I’ll talk about the role Tom Johnson‘s book Self-Similar Melodies (and his music) played in helping me re-work the piece from a piano solo to a duo for trumpet and piano. It’s great to see these kinds of symposia proliferating in the UK and beyond with music practitioners bandying together to share ideas and advocate for the research value of their work. Practice as research in music is a contested topic with its proponents and detractors, but for artists working in (UK) universities understanding and gaining confidence in talking about their work in research-friendly terms is essential. Most importantly, though, such an approach can help catalyse new ideas and personal paths for exploration.
