Beyond Britten: The Composer and the Community: (Aldeburgh Studies in Music)

Leading composers, producers and writers consider the role of the composer in the community in Britain today and over the last fifty years. With his Aspen award lecture (1964), Benjamin Britten expressed a unique commitment to community and place. This book revisits this seminal lecture, but then uses it as a starting point of reflection, inviting leading composers, producers and writers to consider the role of the composer in the community in Britain in the last fifty years. Colin Matthews, Jonathan Reekie and John Barber reflect on Britten's aspirations as a composer and the impact of his legacy, and Gillian Moore surveys the ideals of composers since the 1960s. Eugene Skeef and Tommy Pearson discuss the influence of the London Sinfonietta, while Katie Tearle reviews the tradition of community opera at Glyndebourne. Nigel Osborne and Judith Webster explore the role of music as therapy, and James Redwood, Amoret Abis, Sean Gregory and Douglas Mitchell look at music in the classroom and creative workshops. John Sloboda, Detta Danford and Natasha Zielazinski discuss collaboration in music-making and ways of facilitating exchanges between the composer and the audience, while Christopher Fox and Howard Skempton examine the role of modernism and the use of 'other', radical techniques to stimulate new dialogues between composer and community. Peter Wiegold and Amoret Abis interview Sir Harrison Birtwistle, John Woolrich and Phillip Cashian, and Wiegold discusses his formative experiences in encountering music-making in other cultures. All of these approaches to the role and identity of the composer throw a different light on how we address 'the composer and the community': the varied, sometimes contradictory, motivations of composers; the role of music in 'enhancing lives'; the concept of 'outreach' and the different ways this is pursued; and, finally, the meaning of 'community'. Underpinning each are genuine questions about the relationship of arts to society. This book will appeal not only to composers, performers and practitioners of contemporary music but to anyone interested in the changes in twentieth-century music practice, music in education, and the role of music and the arts in the wider community and society.

Table of Contents:
Peter Wiegold and Ghislaine Kenyon: Introduction - Peter Wiegold and Ghislaine Kenyon Benjamin Britten: On Receiving the First Aspen Award (reprint) Colin Matthews: 'Music is now free for all': Britten's Aspen Award Speech - Colin Matthews Howard Skempton: Britten and Cardew - Howard Skempton Christopher Fox: After the Fludde: ambitious music for all-comers - Christopher Fox Gillian Moore: 'A vigorous unbroken tradition': British composers and the community since the beginning of the twentieth century - Gillian Moore Eugene Skeef: 'I am because you are' - Eugene Skeef Tommy Pearson: 'A real composer coming talk to us' - Tommy Pearson Nigel Osborne: Running away from rock 'n' roll - Nigel Osborne John Barber: Finding a place in Society; finding a voice - John Barber James Redwood: A matrix of possibilities - James Redwood Katie Tearle: 'I was St Francis' - Katie Tearle Judith Webster: Reflections on Composers, Orchestras and Communities: motivation, music and meaning' - Judith Webster Douglas Mitchell: 'Sounding good with other people' - Douglas Mitchell Peter Wiegold and Amoret Abis: 'Making Music is How you Understand It': Dartington Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle, Philip Cashian, Peter Wiegold and John Woolrich - Peter Wiegold Peter Wiegold and Amoret Abis: 'Making Music is How you Understand It': Dartington Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle, Philip Cashian, Peter Wiegold and John Woolrich - Amoret Abis John Sloboda: The Composer and the Audience - John Sloboda Amoret Abis:The Composer in the Classroom - Amoret Abis Sean Gregory: Unleashed: Collaboration, Connectivity and Creativity - Sean Gregory Detta Danford and Natasha Zielazinski: One Equal Music - Detta Danford and Natasha Zielazinski Peter Wiegold: That's how it happens - Peter Wiegold Jonathan Reekie: Britten's Holy Triangle - Jonathan Reekie Postlude Peter Wiegold: Appendix: A Practice - Peter Wiegold

Review :
Offers a stimulating reading with insights into the act of creation, the compositional process, and the vantage point of the modern creative artist in the twenty-first century. An incredibly rich discourse. . . . [A]ppeals across a broad audience and is a resource that will offer much on repeat encounters. . . . The true significance of the volume, however, is in its potential to provoke change and action: that after an encounter with these essays an individual would be moved to consider how music in all of its many forms and disciplines might make a difference within his or her community.