Hi - I'm Shaun Davies, composer-curator-performer, recent graduate of Salford University (Musical Arts) and now finishing up my Masters in Composition at the RNCM with Larry Goves and Gary Carpenter. I'm also Artistic Director of Kinetic - a curating body which champions new experimental art music by living composers exclusively.
I invite anyone with or without musical training to participate in my new piece 'playthings' for a large ensemble toy instruments. The piece requires no musical training whatsoever - all it requires is an enthusiasm for the exploration of sound. There is no musical notation and I am very keen to assemble a group which represents a wide range of people. There is no limit to ensemble size.
'playthings' is about a journey between noise and pitch, it's about combinations of sounds vs. unified sound, it's about the beautiful delicacy of the sound against the visual juvenility of the objects, it's about the acoustic environment it's performed in, it's about liberating and celebrating sounds that result from deficiencies of "poor quality" instruments. Most of all it's about saying that Experimental Art Music shouldn't be exclusive to those with extended classical training and the associated social class, and that we can ALL participate in extraordinary sound without compromising on quality. Not only that, but we can build educationally beneficial and inspirational communities from it.
The schedule for rehearsals / performance are as follows. It would be appreciated if participants could attend at least 2 rehearsals.
Thursday 11th April - 11:00 - 13:00 @ RNCM, Room 278
Thursday 25th April - 18:00 - 20:00 @ RNCM, Studio 7
Thursday 2nd May - 13:00 - 15:00 @ RNCM, Room 278
Saturday 4th May - 18:00 - 20:00 @ RNCM, Studio 6
Sunday 5th May (performance) - 14:00 - 14:20 @ RNCM, Studio 6/7
Participation is unpaid - this project mainly serves as part of my Masters portfolio and I don't have the funds to pay 30+ people as you can probably imagine.
Please, if this interests you, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. From there I can send you all the documentation.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope to meet some of you soon.
All the best,
Shaun.