Music as a multidisciplinary art: The exchange of music and visual elements, and the role of the participants

Benito-Gutierrez, Isabel (2021) Music as a multidisciplinary art: The exchange of music and visual elements, and the role of the participants. Doctoral thesis (PhD), The Royal Northern College of Music in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University.

Preview

Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (3MB) | Preview

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates the processes I undertook to compose a portfolio of music in combination with other artistic disciplines, and the results I found. During my PhD research, I have had the opportunity to work with many different professionals such as poets, painters, and video artists. Co-creating multidisciplinary works has challenged my practice as a composer, allowing me not only to consider the audible side of my pieces, but also the visual side. The different artistic backgrounds of the participants involved in the portfolio attached to this thesis have influenced the way I composed each of the works. My interest in achieving effective audiovisual synchronisation has changed my style of writing; my compositions now have a more graphic and improvisatory nature. This thesis contextualises my work, responding to topics including performance art, verbal and graphic scores, improvisation, aleatory music, and artistic collaboration. I share my perception of musical elements relevant to my practice, for example texture, harmony, and time, observing at the same time the role of the painter, and other issues that arose through the collaborative and audiovisual parts of my composition process. Furthermore, the structure of this commentary gives a reflection, through time, of the direction my compositional language has taken during the last three years of my career, supporting the transition from my initial research interests to those in which I am currently involved. The result of this progression is evident in the more conceptual presentation of some of my scores at the end of the thesis, which coincides with my last pieces. The aim of my work is to contribute a new vision of ways of making and performing music, bringing about new connections between visual arts and music that transcend the composition process, the score, the performance, and in future perhaps, the concert venue.