Series of lectures and workshops designed for students wanting either to gain insight into the contrasting ways contemporary composers make use of the New Music-Theatre genre (from Cage to Ligeti to Crumb to Kagel) or to explore and develop their compositional skills to include theatrical elements.  Theoretical basis is provided demonstrating the necessity of understanding human behaviour as an integral part of the musical process, one which involves the act of thinking musically rather than an analysis of static products.  Students also take part in workshops where theatrical ideas are brought to realisation, and the students are offered a wide array of compositional skills to use in realising the projects.  Two different types of lectures are offered, the first involving the history of the new music-theatre in western culture, and the second involving important theoretical issues confronting contemporary composers who attempt to extend the musical experience beyond the simply aural or monomedial stage.  Each lecture series ends with a concert highlighting some of the most original work.  Workshops include various forms of alternative notation.  The lectures include an approach to interculturality in musical understanding, the growing necessity to turn to other cultures who have totally contrasting ways of experiencing their music.  The lecture series, usually taking place intensively during a two week period including a morning and an afternoon session,  is adapted to each group of students and could include the following titles.

POSSIBLE THEORETICAL LECTURE TITLES:

(i)    What is the New Music-Theatre?

(ii)    Musicality as Process as opposed to Product

(iii)    An Introduction to Multimedial Musicality

(iv)     Performance Texts

(v)    Interculturality and the New Music-Theatre

POSSIBLE HISTORICAL LECTURE TITLES:

(i)       Ancient Music-Theatre

(ii)    Contribution of the Formal Music-Theatre: from Melodrama to Opera

(iii)    The Avant-Garde and the New Music-Theatre

(iv)    The New Music-Theatre and Aleatory:  Dada, Fluxus and John Cage

(v)    Kagel and the New Music-Theatre

POSSIBLE WORKSHOP TITLES:

(i)    The Body as Language: enscribing texts through the body (from sign language to Bharata Natyam)

(ii)    New Music-Theatre from the Perspective of Contemporary Playwrights: from Beckett to Stoppard

(iii)    Notation Techniques in the New Music-Theatre (including the Night Shades notation system)

(iv)    Developing Musical Concepts into Realisable Theatrical Contexts: themes and ideas for expression in new music-theatre works

(v)    Harnessing and Limiting Theatrical Skills in the New Music-Theatre 

(vi)    Expressing Narrative in Music