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Composer-performer orchestration research ensembles (CORE)

Summary | Contact | Overview | Subgroups | Projects

Summary

This group aims to explore the research-creation potential of orchestration problem-solving in the relationship between performers and composers, learning from the experiences of all participating universities.

Workgroup Leaders

Stephen McAdams, Roger Reynolds, Caroline Traube

Contact: stephen.mcadams[at]mcgill.ca

Overview

Five graduate-level Composer-performer Orchestration Research Ensembles (CORE) groups were formed in Canadian and U.S. universities (McGill, UBC, UCSD, UMontreal, UToronto) to promote and document collaborative orchestration problem-solving between performers and composers. In the first round in 2018-20, 22 short pieces or études for a quartet of violin, bass clarinet, trombone and vibraphone plus small percussion were composed. This unconventional instrumentation was selected in order to pose unusual challenges in achieving blended sounds and smooth transitions between instruments, thus bringing collective orchestration decision-making between performers and composers to the fore. Using the same instrumentation at all institutions and identical recording protocols developed by Martha de Francisco of McGill in collaboration with UCSD colleagues allowed for direct comparison of evidence from each institution’s activities, forming a basis for more elaborate analysis and experimentation (as well as sharing pieces between institutions). Concerts and readings were held at UBC and UToronto and recordings were made at UBC and UCSD. Although the pandemic halted final concerts and exchanges of pieces across four of the universities, which will be resumed in 2021, the project nonetheless has already given rise to a plethora of material for analysis. One primary aim of the current project is to analyze these materials from the perspectives mentioned above to better understand the conception and realization of orchestration in young musicians in a research-creation setting. An associated aim also explored is the utility of developing a shared vocabulary of well-defined terms to facilitate the explanation and discussion of composer and performer intentions. Throughout the CORE project, the creative processes of exploration, orchestrational problem-solving, and the realization of new music were recorded, documented, and archived for consideration. Sketches and scores, recordings of workshop sessions, rehearsals with transcriptions of performer-conductor-composer dialogues, and concert or studio recordings are being examined alongside transcriptions of video interviews with performers and composers and texts written by them. We have three analytical aims in mind: 1) to combine score and aural analysis of recordings according to taxonomies of perceptual effects and orchestration techniques, and formal analysis, 2) to examine the evolution of orchestrational and compositional thinking in young composers through sketch studies, interview analyses, and the terminologies for orchestration techniques, perceptual processes and timbre perception that arise in discussing orchestration, as well as the identity and structure of the materials orchestrated, and 3) to analyze verbal interactions between performers, composers and conductors in a problem-solving situation. For example, how do different types of orchestration affect the experience of interpretation and performance? Is the sense of “musicality” affected, restrained or renewed by a given approach to orchestration? Text and discourse analysis of interview transcriptions and written texts are also being conducted using computer-based tools such as Nvivo.

Subgroups

McGill University CORE (Stephen McAdams, Guillaume Bourgogne)
UBC CORE (Keith Hamel, Bob Pritchard)
UCSD CORE (Roger Reynolds, Rand Steiger)
UdeM EROC (Caroline Traube, Pierre Michaud, Jean-Michaël Lavoie)
UofT CORE (Eliot Britton)

Active or Envisioned Projects

Archiving of all available materials from the five partner institutions on the ACTOR Data Repository for subsequent analyses
Seminar at UCSD following-up on Round 1 by examining the process, aims, and outcomes used. (A detailed Report was generated.)
In collaboration with Timbre and Orchestration Analysis group: score and aural analyses of a selection of pieces/études produced in Round 1
In collaboration with the Timbre Semantics group: analyses of transcriptions of interviews with participating performers and composers.
CORE/EROC Round 2 with an expanded ensemble for 2021-2022 academic year.
CORE/EROC Round 3 with an expanded ensemble and electronics for 2022-2023 academic year.