Music & Music Therapy Discipline, Western Sydney University:
Memory, Raw Materiality and Transformation
In recent Chinese architecture of Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri at The Waterhouse at South Bund in Shanghai, they celebrate life—popping out with cuts of revealed raw memory of place, collapsing public and private spaces to suggest revealed intimacy and flow between people, as in a Shanghai nong tong alley ‘full of discovery and surprise’ (Hu and Neri 2017, pp. 34-36). In this pandemic time of between spaces—between the vibrancy of before and the promise of fractured renewal, where there lies a suspended dreaming awaiting change—how do we transition to a better creative future within music and its intercultural interconnections to the world? Architects Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri point to a sustainable future, through a transferrable model which could drive our intercultural musical creativity, where ‘accurate cuts reveal the traces of the walls with its turbulent past’ (Li 2018, p.280) but with a type of qiyun energy flow between spaces where ‘the public realm invades deeply into the core of the private sphere’ (Hu and Neri 2017, p.34) to create a new fractured hybridity of surprising intimacies in space into engagement with people.
This creative thinking seminar series within the liminal space of the continuing pandemic in 2021, pivots the discussion of memory, raw materiality and transformation in the light of Hu and Neri’s creative principles around two outstanding intercultural musicians—one from the multicultural space of Melbourne, and the other from the intersecting cultural identities of London. Innovative improvising trumpet performer, Dr Peter Knight (artistic director, Australian Art Orchestra), will discuss the cultural intersections of ‘being’ in presence of people as creating ‘raw materialities’ of sound towards an Australian multicultural hybrid transformation of sound in ways that are ‘full of discovery and surprise’ (Hu and Neri 2017) in the first seminar, Fracturing Through Hybridity of Experience as Authenticity. Virtuoso border crossing traditional taegum performer, Dr Hyelim Kim (Visiting Research Fellow, Bath Spa University, UK), will explore cultural ‘memory’ in relation to traditional Korean Gugak performance, its geopolitical uncertainties of trauma, and intersections with London’s intercultural improvising musicians towards hybrid transformation of ‘sonic visibility’ in the second seminar, Visibility of Culture as Sustainability for People. The overarching principle of the explorations, is to hear how Melbourne and London’s rich intercultural improvising people communities move the transformative beauty of their creativities, as bold transitions towards the United Nations 2030 Agenda, Sustainable Development Goal 11, to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”
Seminar Format: Bold Transition Seminars 2021: Memory, Raw Materiality and Transformation
The format of these seminars will start with the materiality of sound—live, in-the-moment improvisations on trumpet and taegum over zoom from Melbourne and London—and then open up to presentations on ‘raw materiality’ and ‘memory’ as transformative creativity, before, finally, moving to studio recorded multimedia improvisation presentations and discussion responses from Western Sydney’s creative communities. These multimedia creativities will include WSU staff and HDRs in cluster teams around intercultural and raw materiality free improvisers and music therapists, ancient tradition inspired rapping and reading poets, and fluid energies from dappled-light filmmakers as cogency of artistic creativity and identifiable voice as transformative beauty.
Seminar 1: Thursday, 5.00-6.30pm, 9 September 2021—Zoom link
Fracturing Through Hybridity of Experience as Authenticity
Crossing cultural borders towards ‘raw materialities’ of sound of an Australian multicultural hybrid transformation of unpredictability
Chair: A/Prof Diana Blom (HCA, Former Director of Academic Programme, Music); Panelists: Prof Roger Dean (MARCS), Dr Brendan Smyly (HCA), Mr John Encarnacao (HCA), Dr Daniel Portelli (HCA), Dr Andrew Milne (HCA/MARCS) and poet Emeritus Prof Hazel Smith (W&SRC), with special guest Dr Peter Knight (Artistic Director, Australian Art Orchestra)
HDR Creatives: Dr Andrew Milne (HCA/MRCS) leads HDRs Jo Truman (voice), Jin Ju Yang (gayageum), Joe Tabua (electric guitar/Fijian Lali percussion) & poet Josh Mostafa
Running Order
Part 1: Context
5.00-5.45pm panel enters zoom room via link sent to them
First Introduction: chair (Blom on Knight)—5 minutes
Play music via zoom: Knight (trumpet/electronics live solo improvisation); home-studio: Smyly-Encarnacao-Dean with poet Smith (file sharing)—25 minutes
Australian Art Orchestra: Short statement on ‘inner compass’ for ‘discovery and surprise’ creativity from Knight—10 minutes
WSU: short response: Encarnacao—5 minutes
Part 2: WSU Multidisciplinary collaborations
5.45-6.25pm
Play music/film: Staff/HDR Music-Creative Writing collaboration (includes 1 non-Western instrument) led by Dr Andrew Milne; Staff Music-Film collaboration (Portelli/Chang, excerpt Water Pail [2021])—20 minutes (files sharing, pre-recorded)
WSU: 5 minute statements on ‘inner compass’ for ‘discovery and surprise’ creativity in the collaboration (HDR Team 1; STAFF Team 2)—10 minutes
AAO: short response: Knight—10 minutes
Part 3: Summary & Questions
6.25-6.30pm
Blom & Floor—5 minutes
Registration Details:
| Organiser: Bruce Crossman Email: b.crossman@westernsydney.edu.au for Zoom link | Seminar 1: Thursday, 5-6.30pm, 9 September 2021—Zoom link Bold Transition Seminars 2021: Fracturing Through Hybridity of Experience as Authenticity |
Film 1: Seminar 1: Fracturing Through Hybridity of Experience as Authenticity
Seminar 2: Thursday, 5-6.30pm, 7 October 2021—Zoom link
Visibility of Culture as Sustainability for People
Crossing cultural borders of ‘memory’ with its geopolitical uncertainties of trauma, with intersections and intercultural improvising musicians towards hybrid transformation of sonic visibility
Chair: Dr Clare Maclean (HCA, Director of Academic Programme, Music); Panelists: Dr Alison Short (HCA), Dr Waldo Garrido (HCA), Dr Nicholas Ng (IAC), filmmaker Mr Vincent Tay (HCA) and poet Dr Kate Fagan (W&SRC), with special guest Dr Hyelim Kim (Visiting Research Fellow, Bath Spa University, UK)
HDR Creatives: Dr Nicholas Ng (IAC) leads HDRs Claire Deak (multi-instrumentalist), Gwenda Davies (Celtic harp), Dr Brad Gill (percussion; Chinese opera percussion) & poet Jake Goetz
Running Order
Part 1: Context
5.00-5.45pm panel enters zoom room via link sent to them
First Introduction: chair (Maclean on Kim)—5 minutes
Play music via zoom: Kim (taegum/electronics live solo improvisation); in-studio: Garrido-Ng (live improvisation, or file sharing) with poet Fagan—25 minutes
Kim: Short statement on ‘inner compass’ for ‘uncertainties of trauma, memory and sonic visibility’ in creativity—10 minutes
WSU: short response: Fagan—5 minutes
Part 2: WSU Multidisciplinary collaborations
5.45-6.25pm
Play music/film: HDR Music/Music Therapy-Creative Writing collaboration (includes 1 non-Western instrument); Staff/HDR Music-Film collaboration (Tay, Heaven to Earth: New Korean-Australian Creativity [2021])—20 minutes (file sharing, pre-recorded)
WSU Trauma Discussion: Short statement on ‘inner compass’ for ‘uncertainties of trauma, memory and sonic visibility’ in creativity/music-therapy—10 minutes
Kim: short response—10 minutes
Part 3: Summary & Questions
6.25-6.30pm
Maclean & Floor—5 minutes
Registration Details:
| Organiser: Bruce Crossman Email: b.crossman@westernsydney.edu.au for Zoom link | Seminar 2: Thursday, 5-6.30pm, 7 October 2021—Zoom link Bold Transition Seminars 2021: Visibility of Culture as Sustainability for People |
Bruce Crossman 