Composition, Alternative Performance and Performance Art

“To anyone interested in the Composition, Alternative Performance and Performance art course:

As there have been a few enquiries regarding the Composition, Alternative Performance and Performance (CAPPA) course I thought I’d try and address these through a more informal description of the course and our intentions for it.

CAPPA is intended to be a composition, performance and new music course that interprets these things very broadly. I have felt, in certain circumstances, that new music making associated with technology, acoustic instruments, improvisation and sound art (to name a few areas) are very separate. Add in music that emerges or in some way connects to different traditions (historical performance art, ‘classical’ performance and composition, electronica, folk music etc.) then this can, again in some cases, create separation.

What, then, brings this course together (as it is not intended to be ‘any kind of music in any possible circumstances’)? In this case the unifying characteristic is a desire to experiment in the creation of new music for performance and consider your practice in the context of historical and contemporary experimental music. The decision to contextualise this with a historical performance-art narrative is partly because this is emblematic of experimental creative practice, partly because it seems increasingly relevant to new music making, partly because it provides a dramatic contrast to the western ‘classical music’ narrative that is probably (and understandably) most associated with Snape Maltings and partly because performance art is, for the most part, inherently interdisciplinary.

So what does this mean in practical terms for an application. We are obviously interested in musicians who are engaged in multimedia work and whose practice traverses different traditions and approaches. We are, however, just as interested in composers who write music on paper and ask instrumentalists/vocalists to interpret it and performers who predominantly interpret music but consider that they add to the music through their creative approach. The course is not intended to create a fusion of approaches (although this is not something we would resist either) but to encourage conversation and reflections between artists who are united by experimentation rather than anything else.

So CAPPA is a course for makers. If you make new music and you’re interested in experimentation, then this is likely for you.

If you choose to apply – good luck!

Larry Goves, Oct 2017