_agricologies_: music for viol consort and a string quartet

The proposal centres on the composition of a double cycle for viol consort and string quartet; entitled -agricologies and commissioned by the award winning viol consort Fretwork, and the Kreutzer String Quartet. The music explores the use of borrowed musical materials, a technique that has deep roots within Western art music, and that continues within present-day musical practice in both concert and popular music, as seen in the work of such diverse composers as Schnittke, Donatoni, Ferneyhough and Finnissy, among many others . At the heart of the work is the music of the fifteenth­ century Flemish composer Alexander Agricola (ca. 1456-1506), which serves as the point of reference for all the pieces in the cycles. Each individual movement transforms Agricola's musical materials according to different criteria. The processes used are partly derived from the practices of Agricola and his contemporaries, partly from contemporary serial and post-serial idioms. An important methodological context is provided by the concept of 'Rhizome' developed by the post-structuralist cultural theorist and philosopher, Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Felix Guattari. The 'rhizome' principle privileges non-linear developmental strategies, and is thus appropriate to the discussion both of Agricola's music and that of contemporary composers whose works form the immediate context for the present proposal.

The music will take the form of a completed score which will give rise to several public performances by the commissioning ensembles at national and international venues, including the Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centres in London. In addition, excerpts of the work will be recorded on CD on the classical label Harmonia Mundi U.S.A. It will thus be available to a wide audience. Discussion of the ideas and methodologies behind the work, including its place in the wider cultural and artistic context, will be disseminated by means of a conference papers, a proposed book chapter, and an article in an international peer -reviewed publication, to which the applicant has been invited to contribute.

Agricologies is a response to, and a reflection on, the continued renewal of the tradition of Western art music, in which aspects of both its past and its present are brought together in a fruitful and mutually illuminating dialogue, in a manner that neither seeks to fetishize the past nor to 'colonize' it. As such it will prove valuable to the musical and artistic community, and to those with an interest in contemporary culture.