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abstract
Actual collaboration is difficult and, as a composer, there are structures that exist within our system and institutions to keep the roles (of composer, musician) clearly defined and separate. This presentation will touch on just a few of the projects that I am undertaking and explore the challenges and work methods therein. These will be projects with my group Bastard Assignments, with pianist Zubin Kanga, and with two of my brothers. Each has begun similar preparations: preparation of materials, of scheduling of time, and conversation. Then what is important is how I respond to the reality of what happens and perhaps how that is changing. With each project being quite different from the one before, it can be a challenge to find a thread to follow or a hypothesis to test. Near the beginning of this project, I identified some key advantages of working with Bastard Assignments in a more collaborative way, as devisers, and now I follow that trajectory through to a larger scale project with them and an expanded team. The language we are beginning to use to describe our processes is beginning to change too. Poetic modes of reflection or use of metaphor to describe outcomes have enabled a thread to be found and help me to situate what happens in the rehearsal room within a wider field. I have also begun to build case studies of other composer-performers/choreographers to build a clearer context for myself and of this way of working. How far am I willing to go with collaboration as my compositional method? Are there implications for me, my collaborators, and for composers in general?
- Josh Spear - The Acreage - collaboration as compositional method - 2020
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