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Light Music: Crossdisciplinary approaches to collaborative practice in Fulgurite Chamber (2012) Dr. Adam Melvin Composer - Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, University of Ulster, Magee College, Northern Ireland. Abstract: The recent years have seen a growing interest among composers and musicians alike to explore the creative possibilities of combining music with visual media both within and beyond the realms of established collaborative art forms. The technological advances of the digital era have established an artistic climate of increased and ever-evolving potential for collaborative practice not least for works combining music and the sonic arts with timebased visual media. However, the combination of music – particularly music involving live performers – and visual arts whose ontological state is less obviously temporal (e.g. sculpture) can constitute a slightly more elusive and arguably problematic marriage. Fulgurite Chamber is a piece that confronts this very scenario. Commissioned for Derry/Londonderry’s Void Gallery (Northern Ireland) and scheduled for performance later this year, it is the result of a collaboration between composer Adam Melvin, artist Mark Melvin and Rarescale, a London-based new music ensemble dedicated to the performance and promotion of repertoire for alto and bass flute, in particular the Kingma/quartertone versions of these instruments. The work itself is ‘scored’ for multi-channel sound installation, neon light sculptures/light box installations and solo quarter-tone bass flute. Existing as both an audio-visual installation and live multimedia performance, Fulgurite Chamber revisits several ideas explored in previous pieces between the artist and composer, incorporating a language of deconstructed, yet seemingly familiar elements as its source material, prompting notions of locality and memory as well as seeking ways in which to achieve a true sense of integration between its audio and visual elements. At the same time, the piece adopts a collaborative strategy that seeks to exploit what could be deemed as the crossdisciplinary (Shaw-Miller 2002; 17) or transformational (Levinson 1990;32-3) potential of its component parts - i.e. the potential for media to adopt/incorporate the characteristics of another and thus alter their established states - as a means of overcoming potential problems inherent in its make-up. In doing so, the piece establishes a dynamic with which to bypass and even reinforce the properties of its component media while simultaneously exploring the points of convergence between them. By discussing this rather unusual piece in more detail and in the context of my previous work and research, this paper hopes to offer a unique perspective on collaborative practice while addressing broader questions concerning the marriage of music and visual art as well as our evolving notions of what we deem to be ‘chamber music’. Levinson, Jerrold (1990) Music, Art and Metaphysics: Essays on Philosophical Aesthetics, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Shaw-Miller, Simon (2002) Visible Deeds of Music: Art and music from Wagner to Cage, New Haven & London: Yale University Press Biography Adam Melvin is a composer, saxophonist and researcher. He studied music at Queen’s University Belfast and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before completing his PhD entitled Composing an Installation: Visual and Visuospatial Processes in Musical Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London where he was later appointed Manson Fellow in Composition. His music has been performed throughout Europe, in the United States and Japan by artists including the Composers’ Ensemble, Psappha, Carla Rees, Duo X, Kathryn Tickell, Kuljit Bhamra, Tom Arthurs and the Juice vocal trio. He work has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, RTÉ Lyric FM, Ireland and Antena 2, Portugal. Recent commissions include pieces for the Cheltenham Festival, London City Showcase, London Jazz Festival and a project with the Verbal Arts Cente, Derry for the UK Olympic Legacy Trust UK. A great deal of his recent practice has involved collaborative work with the visual arts, including projects for Glasgow’s Mackintosh Gallery and a residency at CESTA in the Czech Republic. In addition, he has given research papers on music and moving image, site-specific performance and collaborative practice at conferences in London (IMR), Vilnius (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre), New York (NYU Steinhardt) and Vancouver (Cinesonika), amongst others. He is based in Ireland where he is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre, Dublin. He is Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music at the University of Ulster, Magee College, Derry.