Best wishes from Dartington.
John.
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PhD Proposal
An inherent trait of acousmatic music is that sounds are abstracted from
their original sources or environmental context. A fundamental layer of the
meaning of a sound is removed because it is separated from that source or
that environment and is presented through loudspeakers. I am interested in
developing the meanings of sounds rather than treating them as if they had
only a causal or a phenomenal function or as if they were only sound
objects.
The traditional acousmatic music concert diffusion system produces sounds
that are divorced from their origins and played from loudspeakers, the
visual appearance of which influences, and at times even dominates the
experience. I intend to create soundscapes where the emphasis is displaced
from the speakers towards an environment, taking into account both the
acoustic properties of the space and the other properties which give the
space and the sounds meaning. This will be achieved by my creative
exploration of electroacoustic music in combination with different media
working with a number of writers, dancers and other artists to create works
which will expand the boundaries of the electroacoustic domain.
Collaboration is essential to my projects both conceptually and
artistically. Collaboration makes me work in unexpected ways, challenging
me to adapt to new emergent forms and make departures into unknown
territory.
Last year I was awarded a Masters degree in Electroacoustic Music
Composition from the University of East Anglia where I created Cloud of
Forgetting and Butterfly Lovers, two electroacoustic works recorded on
stereo DATs intended for concert performance. These works provided me with
a clear direction to follow since they deal with questions about
representation, documentary, sampling, simulation and spatialisation. They
instigated my interest in creating soundscapes and my exploration of text
and the spoken voice.
The practical work will be accompanied by a thesis which will refer to and
elaborate on my own work, encompassing the issues encountered, the
discussion around those issues, the artistic process and the
contextualisation of the works within a contemporary theoretical framework.
Such theoretical research will refer to analytical models from the visual
arts and communication studies, as well as returning to texts on acoustic
ecology and the theory and analysis of electroacoustic music which have
influenced my previous work.
Projects will include:
text out of image (sandra blow): a collaboration with performance writer
Alaric Sumner, based on the of recent paintings by Sandra Blow RA. The work
will be performed in the environment of the exhibition of the recent
paintings of Sandra Blow RA, The New Millennium Gallery, St. Ives.
Hippocampus: an electroacoustic music work for three dancers, constructed
from an environmental recording of a swimming pool.
Angel: a collaboration with the poet Alice Oswald, based on her poem Angel
which was inspired by the paintings of Cecil Collins.
Modern Mantras: an interdisciplinary installation work dealing with the
urban soundscape. I will be creating music out of the sonic by-products of
contemporary technology.
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Selected Performances and Broadcasts
'Cloud of Forgetting'
11th February,1997. Electroacoustiques universite Concordia university
Electroacoustics, Montrˇal.
7th April. The opening work of the 6th Annual Florida Electroacoustic
Music Festival ,Gainesville.
19th May. discoveries XXIII , Cooper Gallery, Crawford Building, Duncan of
Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee.
22nd and 24th August. "Lydmuren", Danish Radio, national broadcast.
24th, 25th September, 1997. The Eighth International Symposium of
Electronic Arts, Harold Washington Library, Chicago.
'Butterfly Lovers'
9th December, 1996. Musica Nova '96, Czech Republic. Concert in the Jan‡cek
Concert Hall, Prague.
21st February. National broadcast on Czech Radio on the channel "Vltava".
21st March. Performance Technology Season, Dartington College of Arts.
22nd and 24th August. "Lydmuren", Danish Radio, national broadcast.
22nd-27th September, 1997. Selected for The Eighth International Symposium
of Electronic Arts, Chicago.
Selected by Fran¨ois Bayle for presentation at le Son Mu 98, 50th
anniversary, l'invention du son, at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales,
Paris.
16th-24th March, 1998. Selected for performance at the "Festival
international d'art acousmatique et des arts de support Futura 98" at
Lyon's Museum of Modern Art.
25th July. One Voice, Edinburgh, with animation.
'text out of image (sandra blow)'
25th July. The New Millennium Gallery, St Ives. text out of image (sandra
blow) as part of the international A Quality of Light Festival, Cornwall. A
collaboration between performance writer Alaric Sumner and John Levack
Drever based on the recent paintings of Sandra Blow RA.
22nd and 24th August. "Lydmuren", Danish Radio, national broadcast of
excerpts from text out of image (sandra blow).
Excerpts selected for the Sonic Arts Tour 1997.
Hippocampus
November 1998. Hippocampus to be performed at Dartington College of Arts
with three dancers.
Competitions/Awards
Musica Nova '96, Prague: Special Prize for Electroacoustic Music
19th Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo: Finalist
Scottish International Education Trust
Teaching
Since January 1997.Tutor of Sonic Art (Special Needs) at the Open School,
Aller Park, Dartington.
1997/98 Tutor of Electroacoustic Music at Exeter University and tutoring at
Dartington College of Arts.
Research/Education
Studying for PhD at Dartington College of Arts, Devon.
M.Mus in Electroacoustic Composition awarded 1997 from University of East
Anglia.
B.Mus awarded 1995 from The University of Wales, Bangor.
Responsibilities
A director on the interim board of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.
Co-director of Hazards of Noise.
printout dated: 25/10/97 j.drever@dartington.ac.uk
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John Levack Drever j.drever@dartington ac.uk
Research
Performance Technology Centre
Dartington College of Arts
Totnes, Devon, England.
TQ9 6EJ
http://www.dartington.ac.uk/
Tel: +44 (0)1803 862224
Fax: +44 (0)1803 863569