IRCAM PhD positions in compositional research

As announced on the IRCAM website (in French only, according to an ancient tradition, and translated by yours truly):

Research in composition

From Septembre 2014

Université Paris-Sorbonne IV, Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), Sorbonne Universités, Ircam

  

Call for candidacy: first forthnight of May on the Ulysses platform

Selection: in June

  

Contact : info-pedagogie@ircam.fr

The implementation of the LMD [bachelor-master-doctorate] system in European higher education institutions implies the need to create these diplomas or their respective degrees (bachelor, master and doctorate) in educational systems where they did not exist before. It also means that the doctoral degree is more generally required for access to teaching positions, even in schools where it did not exist before. A PhD in music, while it existed in Anglo-Saxon countries (UK and U.S.), was not usual in continental Europe, where musical practice is traditionally taught in conservatories and colleges of music rather than at a university. Numerous European countries, faced with this problem, set up doctorates in music, often in the context of collaboration between university and conservatory.

The doctorate in music composition research, organized in collaboration with the University of Paris -Sorbonne, the Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) and IRCAM, is part of this now inevitable movement. Different from the doctorate in musicology, it is aimed at high-level composers holding a master (or an equivalent degree, along with significant experience in composition), who notably propose projects integrating a technological dimension in the compositional process, and eager to pursue a dual career as composer and researcher. The degree awards a double competence of composer, of which the final degree work attests, and researcher, materialized in the defense of a thesis.

Doctoral training is provided jointly by the three institutions; it includes doctoral courses and joint seminars, issued by the Paris-Sorbonne University , UPMC and IRCAM. The degree is based on the production of creative works (which have to relate to the research project) and on the defense of the doctoral thesis before a jury of the partner institutions.

Research topics

This doctorate is open to candidates wishing to conduct their research from one or more of the topics from (but not limited to) the following list:

Material , form and meaning: categories and musical parameters, computer-assisted composition, music/sound/noise, semiotics, thematism and expressiveness.

Instrument and performer: performance modes, gesture, collaboration of performer/composer, acoustic analysis, extended instruments, electronic instrument making.

Voice, text, word: relations music/text, linguistic and phonological/phonetic approaches, semantics and expression, speech synthesis and processing, plurality of languages.

Orchestration , instrumentation: treaties and rules (from the explicitation of the craft to formalization), timbre and instrumentation, computer assisted orchestration.

Interactivity: sound installations, mixed music, improvisation, multimedia.

Sound space and stage: dramaturgy, scenography, opera, theater, architecture, sound spatialisation.

Methodology and transversal aspects: theory and analysis, collaborative creation, process documentation, qualitative and quantitative approaches, perception and cognition, aesthetics and philosophy of art.

The admittance procedure is organised on a competitive bases.

This cycle is open to candidates wishing to jointly practice a high level composer activity and conduct research leading to a thesis in the field of musical creation, all the while aiming for taking part in a dynamic professional employability.

Candidates must hold a national master degree or degrees of CNSMDP or CNSMDL conferring the rank of master, or having studied abroad at a level deemed equivalent by the graduate school, or enjoying validated academic achievements, and demonstrate experience in composition as evidenced by a record of works, a description of which is specified in the call for applications.

Two candidates are selected annually. 

Contracts will be awarded to two candidates.

Opening of the call for applications: the first half of May 2014.

The thoughts and experiences of Lauren Redhead

 
Lauren Redhead - the name is Viking and matches the mahogany shine in her hair - is a British composer and organist who, at this moment, is in the process of completing a PhD in musicology at Leeds University. She has developed quite a presence on the international conference scene and expresses her well-considered thoughts on her blog-type website.

Perhaps more than her compositions, of which I don't know enough at the moment to go into, really, it is her blog that I am fascinated by and which I want to share here. In her post of 3.6.2011, Lauren deals with questions regarding compositional practice and research. The train of thought is eminently worth reading, especially as it is the only development of any thinking about compositional research that I have come across from the most relevant of practitioners: a composer. Lauren untangles often confused notions of relations between practice and research, offers links to interesting topics, as for instance an AHRC report on the status of writing in Practice-Led Research as well as on practice as a methodological part of research, or an article from the Guardian on why researchers might not want to become involved with people outside of institutions, and why this prerogative would turn their research into a hobby.

Other posts throw light on Lauren's compositional attitude and methods, a focus that can be read and enjoyed as explication of her (re)search. There is quite a bit on collaborative research, e.g. her involvement in the adopt a composer program, or Green Angel, the “contemporary work of operatic Noh theatre” that she wrote with librettist Adam Strickson in 2009-2011. (See some vimeo bits here and here - there is a DVD of the full performance.)

Among the multitude of issues that Green Angel opened up to Lauren, and which she raises and tackles in her presentations and seminars (of which one is coming up on November 7 in Leeds), are:

• dissemination of research to other researchers and the general public in conventional and unconventional ways (including practice-led means that may be currently more favored in the arts);  
• how interdisciplinary dialogue generates new methods of communicating research with a focus on impact and on what researchers can offer each other from their own disciplines; 
• expressing the research interests of both collaborative partners through practice, whilst also creating an artwork with an autonomous function outside of the research context of its creators; 
• the possibility of integrating research interests of more than one party; 
• how practice-led research allows for addressing types of knowledge that are different from traditionally written research; 
• the effectiveness of practice-led research, and of collaboration as a way of facilitating this; 
• considering practice not as an outcome of research but as the medium through which research is conducted, allowing for the consideration that practice itself (without a communicable research element) can be a separate outcome of practice-led research; 
• the outcomes of the performance which are not related to the research.

Lots of food for thought, I'd say, especially for those who are struggling with compositional research. I see proposals from composers that wish to investigate the integration of technology into their work (to name just one typical example) meet with little questioning, perhaps because the research goals or the methods to measure the success with which they are to be met are easy to identify (with). On the other hand, I have witnessed members of assessment panels being puzzled over how to judge the research quality in terms of new knowledge, research method (vs. compositional method), etc. when it comes to someone who writes purely instrumental music in a traditional vein. As a composer and researcher who stands firmly with both feet in the field, Lauren Redhead can be inspiring to those who feel that they are swimming aimlessly in this area of concern.