Composition strategies for the creation of science-based interdisciplinary and collaborative music-theatre

Daniel Blanco Albert

The practice-based PhD research project comprises the development and application of composition strategies and techniques generated through interdisciplinary collaboration to integrate elements and ideas from non-sonic disciplines into the musical discourse of new music-theatre works, specifically opera. I explore mechanisms of mapping and association that engage with both the specific subject matter of each piece and the creative collaborative environment in which they are created, thus generating different compositional resources that I use to inform the creative process. By using mapping techniques, I can deeply engage and communicate a subject matter on different levels in the musical composition. The framework for this research is the intertwining of art and science on a variety of levels from a music compositional perspective. Within this framework, I explored the integration of knowledge and data from the natural and social sciences to inform the composition of four science-based music-theatre works: In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1 (2020), Autohoodening: The Rise of Captain Swing (2021), The Flowering Desert (2022), and TRAPPIST-1 (2023). With this approach, I aim to closely link these works with their particular subject matter instead of being composed based just on my personal musical taste. By consistently and cohesively applying the strategies and techniques explored in this research, the outcome is not creating music about science or music inspired by science, but, instead, music embedded with science in which the scientific data and knowledge inform the composition decisions. The subject matter is therefore intertwined within the musical discourse, its performativity and theatricality, and its relationship with the other disciplines and collaborators involved in the creation of these music-theatre works.

Text setting - In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1

In the case of the site-specific music-theatre piece about Naum Gabo’s Linear Construction in Space No. 1, Roxanne Korda and I used quotes from the Realistic Manifesto[47] (1920) to inform the composition of this work. The first scene is performed as a parade across the art gallery of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. This parade follows the chronological evolution of the art displayed in the gallery. At certain points, corresponding to different artistic epochs, we contextualise the artworks on display with the ideas of a philosopher that relate to them. We used texts from Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Einstein. After the ideas of these philosophers are delivered, they are confronted with a statement from Gabo’s manifesto. About this, Roxanne Korda (2020: 4), librettist and collaborator in the piece, wrote:

I decided to make use of the manifesto whilst also providing a chronological theoretical background of the philosophy that underpins the manifesto. (…) The text for this part has two interweaving sections. These are the “Manifesto Statements”, which describe everything being renounced and affirmed by the artist, and the introduction of different philosophers and their ideas to the audience[48].

←

Back to page

Example #12

The singer freely sings Plato’s ideas about form in the gallery’s mediaeval and Renaissance section [00:00:30]. These ideas are refuted with a statement from Gabo’s manifesto, spoken by the singer [00:01:35].

Tip

Tip