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Simulating and stimulating performance: developing a next-generation music performance simulator
Full text linkThe spaces where musicians practice often differ considerably from where they perform. As such, musicians are an emblematic example of performers who must adapt their skillset to contexts where the visual, aural, social, and psychological environment introduces significant increases in variety, risk, and pressure. Numerous domains address this disparity through the use of simulation, giving the performer the opportunity to learn and challenge their skills in contexts more closely resembling real-world conditions. This article describes the implementation of simulation in music performance contexts through the development of the second generation of performance simulation technologies at the Royal College of Music. It outlines the design requirements for a large, immersive space with a high degree of flexibility in recreating the visual and acoustic atmosphere of a performance stage and corresponding backstage area, while also facilitating performance capture and analysis. Applications for such a facility are outlined to advance research, teaching, and knowledge exchange within and beyond music performance
Perspective: chapter 3
No full textI was Managing Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) between 2016 and 2024, and, prior to that, I worked at the Philharmonia Orchestra and Royal Northern College of Music. Alongside my fiduciary responsibility for overseeing the RPO’s wider business, my role encompassed artistic planning (in conjunction with the RPO’s Music Director Vasily Petrenko) and shaping the strategy for the Orchestra’s education and community engagement work. As an orchestra that receives under half the level of public funding compared to its UK counterparts, the RPO has to remain tenacious and fleet-of-foot to adapt its business model in order to maintain earned income and ensure that its artistic and education programmes evolve to remain relevant to the diverse range of communities the Orchestra serves. I had the privilege to be a member of the Royal College of Music (RCM)’s Council between 2020 and 2024, providing a direct insight into the challenges and opportunities that face today’s young musicians
Bands as musical subcultures: cultures, practices, and influences
No full textThis chapter examines the place of military, brass, and show bands in nineteenth-century music culture and their relationship to the classical music mainstream. It concludes that each of these domains was related to, but separate from, art music culture, its institutions, repertoires, and practices. It argues that bands were subcultures the identities of which were internally formed and shared through structural networks. Obvious structural similarities defined each type of band—their instrumentations, the way performers were recruited, and their purposes in the musical life of the period, for example. These distinctions created value systems that served to define their performance idioms. There was mobility from these subcultures to the classical music mainstream. For example, almost all brass and wind players were trained and gained their formidable musical experience in military bands. In the first part of the period this included players who had never enrolled in the military but were hired as freelancers by regiments as needs arose. It followed that the performance practices of bands, including brass bands that in many respects were replications of military models, caused performance conventions to be transferred to aspects of art music. The chapter also touches on the organological issues that were shared between bands and orchestras, in a period when almost all wind instruments were the subject of major design developments that led to both gradual and acute reforms to their music idioms
Carl Engel (1818–1882): ‘the highest authority in Europe upon the development of musical instruments’
No full textPutting bisexuals in the room where it happens: Hamilton fandom’s struggle for bisexual+ representation
No full textLifelong creative careers
No full textThis chapter focuses on the role of conservatoires in preparing students for creative careers. It begins by considering the different backgrounds of conservatoire students, contending that the wide range of nationalities and experiences has implications for how a conservatoire needs to think about preparing students for the global music profession. The chapter goes on to argue that careers in music have changed rapidly over the past decades, with entrepreneurship, technology, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to a quickly changing professional landscape. Against this backdrop, the chapter considers critically what world-leading career support looks like in the conservatoire setting, including introducing the Royal College of Music (RCM)’s Creative Careers Centre. Finally, the chapter outlines new RCM initiatives designed to facilitate entrepreneurship, audience development, and creativity
The global conservatoire
No full textThis chapter explores how online learning is opening up new possibilities for conservatoire learning and teaching, with a particular focus on the global context. The conservatoire environment traditionally privileges embodied interactions; however, this chapter argues that carefully designed online learning can provide important and timely opportunities for digital skills development, flexible learning, peer interaction, and culturally responsive courses. Following a short survey of online teaching in music, this chapter introduces the multi-institutional Erasmus+ ‘Global Conservatoire’ project, examining how online international teaching partnerships can complement the embodied and collaborative values of traditional conservatoire teaching models. The authors draw upon the findings of a research project that explored the staff and student experiences of the Global Conservatoire in practice. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the outcomes of the project before setting out a number of recommendations to embed and optimise online transnational learning in today’s conservatoire curriculum as a form of ‘global pedagogy’
Marion Scott professional networks dataset 1906-1953
No full textThis dataset documents the professional and creative networks of Marion Scott (1877-1953), a violinist, music critic, musicologist, and co-founder of the Society of Women Musicians. Compiled from 76 archival documents and records held at the Royal College of Music, it provides a structured account of relationships and biographical details relevant to early 20th-century British musical culture.
The collection comprises two interrelated datasets, each provided in both Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv) formats:
Marion_Scott_networks_dataset — a relationship dataset detailing 774 documented connetctions between 475 individuals, with fields including Source_ID, Source_Name, Target_ID, Target_Name, Relationship_Type, Date, Document_Type, Document_Reference, Location, Event_Context, Interaction_Direction, and Weight (1–5 scale).
Marion_Scott_networks_unique_names — a biographical dataset containing the same 475 unique individuals, with details such as Person_ID, Full_Name, Gender, Nationality, Occupation/Role, Years_Active, and First_Appearance_Date.
All data was manually extracted and systematically verified against original sources. The structured format supports applications in social network analysis, enabling researchers to examine women’s cultural leadership and reassess established narratives of musical history in Britain between 1906 and 1953.
***** This dataset is available open access at the 'Official URL' given below. ****
Performing Handel's Ouverture HWV424 for two clarinets and horn: a first encounter with 3D printing
Full text linkOne of the most precious treasures in the Royal College of Music Museum's collection, the ivory clarinet in D made by Georg Heinrich Scherer around 1740 has been copied through 3D printing. This article presents the observations of playing such copies, including reflections over the compass and pitch of clarinets from that time, and the revelation of a magnificent sound response. The piece to be performed and recorded is the Ouverture HWV424 for two clarinets and horn in five movements that Handel wrote around 1741 – the same period during which Scherer built the ivory clarinet in question. In this piece, Handel promotes the clarinet's cantabile qualities alongside the trumpet-like idioms characteristic of its earliest repertory. The composer makes considerable technical demands on the players, and the 3D-printed clarinets responded with a bright and crisp quality, even in their lower register, traditionally regarded as a weak feature of Baroque clarinets. Within the project, elements of historical accuracy are inevitably challenged by questions of practical expediency. Reed position and design, for instance, reflect the experience of musicians working in the 2020s, although the performance itself aims to demonstrate a historical awareness that is facilitated by the very success of the 3D prints
Handel: Ouverture HWV424 for two clarinets and horn
Full text linkHandel's Ouverture HWV242 for two clarinets and horn, performed on two of the world’s first 3D-printed two-keyed clarinets by Colin Lawson and Ingrid Pearson (clarinets) and Gavin Edwards (horn), recorded in the Royal College of Music Museum in December 2024. The recording is published on Vimeo and is licenced CC BY-NC (Creative Commons: Attribution Non-Commercial). For an article by Colin Lawson on this recording see https://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/2640