Following from our residential in 2015, once again Inclusive Creativity is a central theme of the St Magnus International Festival's renowned composer's course from 16-18 June.

I've been involved with Inclusive Creativity for over two years now, in the role of Project Coordinator. Given the span of the project - across multiple partners and countries - not to mention its ever-evolving strands of work, my role has mainly been to try to keep us all loosely on the same trajectory and more or less within the same timeframe!

Ulster University students Amy Pollock and Emma Donegan have been undertaking a placement module this semester and have been working alongside the Acoustronic ensemble to create some exciting new music. They both had a little bit to say about their time with the group..

The Acoustronic ensemble has been working on pieces in their weekly sessions that they will be performing with the Benyounes ensemble in early 2017. So far they have two pieces under their belt but have been working on the third, which was the focus of this week’s rehearsal.  

Working with Drake Music Scotland previously, I had some experience of creating music in an inclusive environment and using technology and acoustic instruments together. Following on from that I wanted to explore a few areas - difficulty and 'dissonance' - which I had shied away from previously, in an attempt for the music to be more approachable. 

This pilot weekend really hit the ground running. There was a sense of excitement and for me apprehension as we were all stepping into something new. Between us we all have different ways of creating, performing and notating music and sound. One of the long-term ambitions for this project is to see whether there is way to share these variety of methods and to make collaborations simpler through notation.

Before attending the workshop I had never really experienced working with electrical instruments or working with musicians with a physical disability so I was very interested as to the outcome of the experience.

The second day of our intensive workshop began by getting straight to work. The composers and musicians immediately started revising their pieces, making final adjustments before the last run through and performance to the group. 

How do you evaluate an experiment?

We arrived last night into a rainbow: our small plane touched down onto a pristine landscape, with an arc of colour just ahead of its nose. 

I was impressed by how composer and players all demonstrated much more familiarity and skill with the new instruments. We’ve settled on using Push controllers with Live software and on iPads running Thumbjam, Bloom and Remiix apps giving an incredible amount of flexibility and variation.

We had a visit from other partners in the project – Mary Paterson from Drake Music, Alasdair Nicholson from St Magnus International Festival and Alice Lewis and Matthew Greenall from Walled City Music.

First week with full ensemble here – Jay, James, Niamh and myself now joined by musicians from Something Special– Sarah, John, Sean, Conor, Robert with new undergraduate students Connie and Natasha and PhD students Thelma and Denise.

Very excited about our new inclusive ensemble, yet to be named, which brings together performers, composers and inventors combining acoustic and electronic instruments.  These include newly designed and built creations such as Wavemotion, as well as off the shelf hardware and software Ableton Live and Push.