Research Catalogue - an international database for artistic research

Michael Wolters

I can see music.

Germany, United Kingdom °1971

research interests: experimental composition, Performance art, visual music

affiliation: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

I was born in 1971 in Mönchengladbach, Germany and grew up in Niederkrüchten, a small German village on the Dutch border. After working as a care worker in a children's home and a runner at several theatres in Germany and Scarborough I studied Applied Theatre Studies at Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany and Composition at the University of Huddersfield (BA, MA) and the University of Birmingham (PhD). My teachers include Christopher Fox, Heiner Goebbels, Patric Standford and Vic Hoyland.

My works have been performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the ISCM World Music Days in Manchester, Spitalfields Festival, the Barbican Centre, Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Purcell Room, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Tate Liverpool and various other concert halls, festivals, supermarkets, art galleries, shoe shops, theatres, banks, opera houses, in cafes, on beaches, on ice rinks, in cinemas, on the radio, on TV; in Europe, Russia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada.

I joined the composition department at RBC in 2004 as a visiting tutor, became Deputy Head of Composition in 2009 and I was awarded the title of Associate Professor in Composition in 2015.

Recent commissions include Ava’s Wedding – An English Tragedy: a full-length opera written for and performed by Birmingham Conservatoire; Requiem: my fifth commission from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; Danserye (commissioned by NDR - das Neue Werk) and chorus/groove space: two collaborations with choreographer Sebastian Matthias; Hamburger Suite, commissioned by Kampnagel Hamburg and performed by Ensemble Resonanz; There are more of them than us - A Queer Concerto for 9 Saxophones and Orchestra, performed by RBC saxophone department and orchestra and Catalogue d'Emojis, created in collaboration with Paul Norman.

research

research expositions

Notions of Queerness as compositional building blocks in "There are more of them than us - a Queer Concerto for 9 Saxophones and Orchestra" (2020) author(s): Michael Wolters published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
This exposition examines how notions of queerness can be built into the construction of a 15-minute long concerto for 9 saxophones and orchestra. I am presenting the full orchestral score, a video of the premiere performance and a commentary on the research process.
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She plays angel music (where people might die) (2020) author(s): Michael Wolters, Paul Norman published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
She plays angel music (where people might die) Post-Internet Music as a comment on the absorption of knowledge This exposition articulates the research within the artistic work She Plays Angel Music (where people might die), a 60-minute concert-installation for 5-25 female harpists. The research was triggered by highly questionable and incomplete information on the history of harp composition found on Wikipedia. While it is generally accepted that Wikipedia is not a reliable source in academia, it still a powerful source of knowledge amongst the general public. Thus, the incomplete display on the site promotes a) the historic and continuing discrimination of women from music composition in the classical music world and b) the continuing rejection of contemporary music in favour of music by dead composers in the classical music world. This exposition takes the reader through the compositional steps that were performed in order to create a post-internet work that attempts to highlight political situations by gathering publicly available information into a controversial context.
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