Working Class-ical Music: Exploring the creative potential of embodying working-classness in a folio of new interdisciplinary compositions

AIDAN Teplitzky

In my practice-based research I have developed a portfolio of new interdisciplinary compositions that explore the creative potential of embodying working-classness in classical music. The impact of my research is the production of a portfolio of compositions that effectively provide new considerations to various aspects of classical music’s culture, including: • Performance Environment (Holding, The Damned, and The Weight of History and Background Etudes) • Instrumentation (It’s Hard to Make an Oboe Sound Working-Class) • Musical forms (Budget Cuts to Faure’s Piano Trio in D Minor and Theme With Variations Forced by Expectations) • The experience of those working in/engaging with classical music’s culture (Budget Cuts to Faure’s Piano Trio in D Minor and The Weight of History and Background Etudes) • Musical language (Seven Working-Class Time Pieces, Baguette Baton and Escapism). The following exposition also provides a resource to address the stereotyping of working-classness in contemporary creative outputs, a methodology for how working-classness can be embodied in artistic practice, a display of how interdisciplinary methods can be used to effectively express the working-class experience, and a space for other working-class artists to express their class through classical music.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank my supervisors Michael Wolters and Joe Cutler for all of their help in supporting this research, Isaac Boulter, Emma Brown, Siying Chen, Dexter Drown, Anna Emslie, Alma Orr-Ewing, Will Hammond, Emily Hicks, Andrey Fjeldstad, Dominic O’Sullivan, Nicole Michelli, Jack Mouradian, Simon Paton, Jennie Robson, and Molly Welling for their brilliant performances across the portfolio, Orkest de Ereprijs and The Fidelio Trio for their professional support, Carrie Churnside and Chris Dingle for their tricky questions, AHRC and M4C for financially supporting the PhD, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for all of their support, my friends Nicholas Olsen, Jay Capperauld, Richard Greer, Gordon McPherson, Laura Hind, Daniel MacInnes, Darragh Magee, and Ryan McGhee for keeping me sane, and my Mum for all of her love.

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AIDAN Teplitzky - Working Class-ical Music: Exploring the creative potential of embodying working-classness in a folio of new interdisciplinary compositions - 2025