Pilot Projects For Two Arranged Marriages Between Composers of Western and South Asian Art Music

In partnership with the Asian Music Circuit (AMC), my AHRC Fellowship in the Creative & Performing Arts will develop a 5-year series of concerts in which some of South Asia's greatest musicians collaborate with their peers from Western contemporary art-music. AMC is the UK's leading promoter of Asian music; Viram Jasani, its CEO, is the UK's most experienced Hindustani musician & a respected colleague & friend to many of India's greatest musicians. I have learnt Hindustani sitar for 33 years & Western music all my life (born 1956). Germany's foremost new-music ensemble, Ensemble Modern, has performed my compositions, including in their 'Rasalila' 2006 project with leading Indian composer-performers (La Biennale di Venezia; ISCM World New Music Festival, Stuttgart; Frankfurt Book Fair 'Today's India'). I was consultant to 'Rasalila' 2003 & to Attenborough's Gandhi, 1982. My ethnomusicology PhD is on Thailand's art-music (SOAS 1993). The combined expertise of Jasani & myself, together with the structures & peer-review scrutiny of my AHRC Fellowship, will enable us to create situations in which world-leading Western & South-Asian musicians can collaborate in ways that were previously not possible. The resulting music will be of interest to major concert venues & festivals across Europe, South Asia, & beyond.

The two pilot projects are:
1) Experiments with alaap improvisation & intelligent computer systems: with dhrupad singers Uday Bhawalkar & Amelia Cuni (www.udaybhawalkar.org; www.ameliacuni.de). Recent developments in artificial intelligence for music, particularly machine listening, unsupervised machine learning & computer models of creative practice, offer potential for an original & challenging engagement between technology & human performance. As 4 co-composers, we will work with Dr Michael Young, director of Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studios Research Group, which leads a major international initiative in this field (www.livealgorithms.org).
2) Intercultural co-composition: Silkstone with Rajan & Sajan Mishra, two of India's greatest khyal singers. Neither I, nor Jasani, has yet heard an Indian-Western collaboration that - from our two contrasting perspectives - even approaches the power & fluency of such contemporary Indian music. Ensemble Modern's Rasalila (2001-2006+) was a big step; this project will be another if it can sustain the energy of Rajan Mishra's initial creative ideas during our discussions at AMC Summer School 2007.

All intercultural projects try to optimise synergies; this one develop new methodologies for doing so, drawing upon some well-tested principles of 'creative practice as research' and Social Anthropology. This methodology is based upon a 3-phase reflexive cycle: creation; critical feedback; then, reformulation of creative objectives/methods for the next creative phase. This 3-phase cycle revolves around 3 broad 'research questions', each with various ramifications. These pilot projects address three of these more specific questions (see 'Objectives'), so as to contribute to the larger endeavour of my Fellowship - Intercultural Composition: Arranging Marriages Between Western & South Asian Art Music. These pilots also:
a) Test whether musicians share compatible expectations & motivations suited to 'arranged marriages', major collaborative touring projects;
b) Put initial methodologies into practice so as to test & adjust them, using 'action research' methods of Social Anthropology. As researcher, I am involved in the action of projects as co-composer & co-director, constantly adapting methodologies according to creative needs & discoveries.