Abstract
Since 2009 my compositional practice has been shaped by a heightened awareness of the creative agency of the performer, evident chiefly through my adoption of indeterminate notation. The consequences of this decision have affected the expressive, technical and aesthetic aspects of my music leading to a much closer relationship with the experimental tradition than I could have conceived five years ago. This talk will take stock of these changes and reflect on them through recent scholarship in composition and performance creativity. It’s focus will be on Albumleaves (2013) for trumpet and string quartet, a large scale, open form work that constituted a ‘testing ground’ for experimental approaches new to me at the time. Trumpeter Simon Desbruslais will co-present, offering a performer’s perspective from which to interrogate the notions of performer creativity and freedom that informed the composition of Albumleaves. In common with all practice based research there has been an emergent quality to the knowledge Simon and I have acquired during our collaboration; we will not, therefore, seek to provide hard and fast conclusions but to produce insights into a practice sustained by an ongoing dialogue between the acts of composition and performance.