CeReNeM - Academic and Artistic Community

CeReNeM Academic and Artistic Community

CeReNeM is one of the largest communities for new music of any academic institution worldwide, with 16 members of staff, nine externally funded Research Fellows, eight honorary Visiting Professors and Visiting Research Fellows, and a postgraduate population of over 50 students. The scale and breadth of that community allows for a uniquely diverse collection of creative and scholarly practices, aesthetic approaches, methodologies, and opportunities. CeReNeM aims to provide a broadly ecumenical environment for new music, one that is open to exploration and innovation across the field of contemporary music-making, and one that provides flexible and supportive platforms for cross-disciplinary and multidisciplinary research and practice.

Concerts, Festivals, and Performance Opportunities

The University of Huddersfield is home to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//), the most significant festival for new music in the UK, which recently celebrated its 40th year. CeReNeM maintains an important partnership with hcmf// through select, co-produced events and concerts and through CeReNeM’s HCR record label.

The University also hosts the Electric Spring festival for electronic music, an annual five-day festival of leading musicians working with and through music technology, featuring the exceptional resources of the 50-channel, 66-loudspeaker Huddersfield Immersive Sound System (HISS).

Across the academic year, CeReNeM hosts numerous concerts with visiting performers of international renown. All visitors perform student compositions in their concerts as well as offering workshop opportunities, and Contemporary Music Performance students receive additional masterclass and tutorial sessions. Notable recent guests have included the Bozzini Quartet (Canada), EXAUDI (UK), JACK Quartet (USA), ELISION Ensemble (Australia), Plus-Minus Ensemble (UK), Distractfold Ensemble (UK), Teodoro Anzellotti (Germany), Séverine Ballon (France), Richard Craig (UK), Juliet Fraser (UK), Seth Josel (USA/Germany), Mieko Kanno (Japan/Finland), Mark Knoop (UK), Garth Knox (France), Ryan Muncy (USA), Ashot Sarkissjan (Armenia/UK), Christopher Redgate (UK), and Peter Veale (New Zealand/Germany).

Guest Lectures: CeReNeM Colloquium & Creative Coding Lab

The CeReNeM Colloquium is a weekly meeting of all staff and postgraduate students to share work in progress with colleagues, as well as providing a platform for guest lecturers. The Creative Coding Lab also frequently welcomes guest lecturers to present work in music technology and software development. Recent guests across the two series have included Georgina Born, Clarence Barlow, Erik Clarke, Chaya Czernowin, Judy Dunaway, Simon Emmerson, Brian Ferneyhough, Björn Heile, Vic Hoyland, Clara Iannotta, Tim Rutherford-Johnson, Anna Meredith, Robert Normandeau, Erik Oña, Hilda Paredes, Michael Pisaro, Sam Pluta, Miller Puckette, Rebecca Saunders, Matthew Shlomiwitz, Hans Tuschku, and Jennifer Walshe.

Conferences & Symposia

CeReNeM and the University of Huddersfield Music & Music Technology programme frequently host conferences and symposia, including a number of high-profile international annual conferences. These include the Inaugural Roberto Gerhard Conference (2010), International Contemporary Music Conference (ICMC 2011), Noise in and as Music (2013), Extended Durations (2013), Beyond Pythagoras (2014), Michael Finnissy: Dialogues (2016), Vocality/Instrumentality (2017), Finding Democracy in Music (2017), Tracking the Creative Process in Music (TCPM 2017), the annual BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference (2018), the Ambient@40 Symposium (2018), AVBODY: Symposium on the Audiovisual Body (2018); Music and democracy: beyond metaphors and idealization (2019); and the Eleventh Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900, in partnership with CMCI (2019).

The Electric Spring festival also features an annual Creative Coding Lab Symposium (formerly the MaxMSP PowerUser Symposium), a day-long event focusing on advanced developments in music technology software, with leading researchers and practitioners in electronic music.

CeReNeM Seminar, Workshop, and Masterclass Series

CeReNeM offers a weekly seminar, workshop, and masterclass series to support and supplement the independent research activities of its MA and PhD students, including investigations into a range of theoretical and aesthetic issues and training in practical skills relevant to postgraduate researchers in composition, contemporary music performance, musicology, and various sub-fields of music technology.

All CeReNeM staff contribute to the seminar series to ensure a wide range of research interests and practices are represented, and the content of the sessions is tailored to the research interests of the current cohort of students. Each year, CeReNeM staff collectively propose four thematic strands to help unify the seminar, workshop, and masterclass offerings. In recent years these strands have included, for example: Electronics in Performance; Approaches to Rhythm; The Open Work; Advanced Orchestration; Contemporary Music Theatre & Opera; Notation; Improvisation & Openness; Space, Place, & Environment; Music of the Last Decade; Audiences; Sketching and the Compositional Process; Gesture & the Body; 21st Century Form; Critical Listening; Politics of Identity; Listening to Technology; New Music & Social Change; and New Music & Race. The complete list of postgraduate seminars and workshops since 2009 can be found on the 'Seminars and Workshops' tab here.

Additionally, many of our invited guest lecturers also offer masterclasses and individual lessons, providing further opportunities to present and discuss creative and scholarly work. Intensive hands-on workshops on new digital instruments, sound art, and installation practice have been presented by the instrument builder Peter Blasser, sound artists David Toop and Minoru Sato, and in a weeklong workshop on the computer-controlled robotic piano with former CeReNeM Professor Peter Ablinger and Prof Winfried Ritsch (IEM Graz).

Visiting Artists-in-Residence

Visiting Artists (2020–21)

International Contemporary Ensemble (USA), yearlong virtual artist in residence, as part of the Re.Co.Lab programme

Visiting Artists (2019–20)

Ensemble Plus Minus (UK)
Weston Olencki (USA)
Richard Craig (UK) [postponed due to Covid-19]
Juice Vocal Ensemble (UK) [postponed due to Covid-19]

Visiting Artists (2018–19)

Visiting Artists (2017–18)

Visiting Artists (2016–17)

Garth Knox, viola (UK)
Aisha Orazbayeva, violin & Joseph Houston, piano (UK/GER)
Juliet Fraser, voice (UK)
Line Upon Line Percussion (USA)
Quasar Saxophone Quartet (CAN)

Visiting Artists (2015–16)

Jeffrey Gavett, baritone (USA)
Cepromusic (Mexico)
Mieko Kanno, violin (UK)
Richard Craig, flute (UK)
Bozzini String Quartet (Canada)
Ensemble Apparat (Germany)
Tracensemble (UK)

Visiting Artists (2014–15)

Mark Knoop, piano & Aisha Orazbayeva, violin (UK)
Ellen Fallowfield, cello & Steven Menotti, trombone (Basel)
Juliet Fraser, soprano & Maxime Echardour, percussion (UK)
Nancy Ruffer, flute (UK)
Peter Veale, oboe (Germany)

Visiting Artists (2013–14)

Distractfold Ensemble (UK)
Ictus Ensemble (Belgium)
Mark Knoop (UK)
Peyee Chen (UK)
Ashot Sarkissjan (UK)
Garth Knox (France)

Visiting Artists (2012–13)

Idée Fixe (Greece)
ELISION Ensemble (Australia)
Alice Teyssier & Jonathan Hepfer (USA)
Séverine Ballon (France)
Ryan Muncy (USA)
Carl Rosman (Germany/Australia)

Visiting Artists (2011–12)

Lore Lixenberg, mezzo soprano (UK)
Richard Haynes, clarinet (Australia/Switzerland) / Paul Hübner, trumpet (Germany) / Stephen Menotti, trombone (Switzerland)
asamisimasa - Hakon Stene, percussion / Anders Forisdal, guitar (Norway)
Ermis Theodorakis, piano (Greece)
EXAUDI (UK)
Bridget Carey, viola (UK)

Visiting Artists (2010–11)

JACK Quartet (USA)
Okeanos Ensemble (UK)
Joby Burgess, percussion (UK)
Seth Josel, guitar (USA/Germany)
Rhodri Davies, harp (UK)
Ensemble Plus-Minus (UK)
Carter Williams, viola d'amore (USA/Germany)
Johnny Chang, violin (Germany)

Visiting Artists (2009–10)

ELISION Ensemble (Australia)
Neil Heyde, cello (UK)
Jeremias Schwarzer, recorder (Germany)
Mark Knoop, piano (UK) / Séverine Ballon, cello (France) / Carl Rosman, clarinet (Australia)
EXAUDI (UK)

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CeReNeM - Academic and Artistic Community