Rose Dodd (editor) - Perspectives on the Music of Christopher Fox: Straight Lines in Broken Times

Perspectives on the Music of Christopher Fox

Christopher Fox (1955) has emerged as one of the most fascinating composers of the post-war generation. His spirit of experimentalism pervades an oeuvre in which he has blithely created his own version of a range of contemporary musical practices. In his work many of the major expressions of European cultural activity Darmstadt, Fluxus, spectralism, postminimalism and more are assimilated to produce a voice which is uniquely resonant and multifaceted. In this, the first major study of his work, musicologists, composers, thinkers and practitioners scrutinize aspects of Christopher Foxs music, each exploring elements that relate to their own distinct areas of practice, tracing Foxs compositional trajectory and situating it within post-war contemporary European music practice. Above all, this book addresses the question: How can one person dip his fingers into so many paint pots and yet retain a coherent compositional vision? The range of Foxs musical concerns make his work of interest to anyone who wants to study the development of so-called new music spanning the latter twentieth century into the twenty-first century.

Rose Dodd (1967) is a composer of instrumental and electronic music. From 199094 she lived in the Netherlands studying briefly with Diderik Wagenaar at the Royal Dutch Conservatoire in The Hague. Coming from an acousmatic background with a strong interest in Scandinavian soundworlds, whether electronic or instrumental, the Swedish text sound-art tradition in particular has led to a number of electronic works with text. Dodd has been awarded a number of prizes, including Honourable Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 96, 19th International Luigi Russolo Concorso and Prix de Residence at Bourges Synthse 97. Engaged in a significant research residency period at NOTAM Oslo, which began in 2011, she is working on a series of works for instruments and electronics. The results so far have been mobius ii for Hardanger fiddle (Britt Pernille Frholm) and electronics premiered HCMF 2011; Aandacht for 2 pianos and electronics, performed by Philip Thomas/Lisa Ullen premiered HCMF 2013, and Waternish Ballad for Scottish fiddle (Sarah-Jane Summers) and electronics premiered at Scotlands Sound Festival, Banchory in October 2014. She has also written pieces for Ere Lievonen, for the 31-tone Huygens-Fokker Organ, situated in Amsterdams Muziekgebouw, Kleurenspelletjes (2015). She was awarded a PhD in Composition in 2006 at the University of Huddersfield, UK, where she studied with Christopher Fox.

First published 2017
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Dodd, Rose.
Title: Perspectives on the music of Christopher Fox: straight lines in broken times / edited by Rose Dodd.
Description: [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015040012 | ISBN 9781472428240 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315600222 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Fox, Christopher, 1955Criticism and interpretation. | Music20th centuryHistory and criticism. | Music21st centuryHistory and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML410.F795 P47 2016 | DDC 780.92dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040012

ISBN: 9781472428240 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315600222 (ebk)

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All works by Christopher Fox are Copyright by Fox Edition. Reproduced by kind permission of Christopher Fox, Fox Edition, www.foxedition.co.uk.

Monty Adkins is Professor of Experimental Electronic Music at the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM), University of Huddersfield, UK. He has published over 20 articles relating to the aesthetics of electronic music and sonic art. He is the co-editor of The Roberto Gerhard Companion (Ashgate, 2013), and in 2012 was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant to research the electronic music of Roberto Gerhard whose work is archived at Cambridge University Library. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (MA Hons), University of Birmingham (MA) and University of East Anglia (PhD). His current research is focused on sonic art archived as part of the British Music Collection at the new University of Huddersfield Music Repository, Heritage Quay, Huddersfield.

Stephen Chase is a composer and performer. His work involves live performance, installation, text and walking. He has collaborated variously with EXAUDI, Quatuor Bozzini, Ross Parfitt, pianist Philip Thomas, the Music wed like to hear concert series, murmuration, Mick Beck, Piggle and Freaking Glamorous Teapot. He completed a PhD at the University of Sheffield on the aesthetics of free improvisation, and co-edited (with Philip Thomas) Changing the System: The Music of Christian Wolff (Ashgate, 2010).

Rose Dodd is a composer of instrumental and electronic music. Her first composition teacher at Dartington College of Arts was Frank Denyer; after graduating she lived in the Netherlands (19904), studying briefly with Diderik Wagenaar at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Dartington and the Dutch music scene have been formative influences on her subsequent work. She has received numerous prizes for her electronic works, including Prix de Residence at Bourges 1995 and a Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 1999. She completed her PhD in composition at the University of Huddersfield with Christopher Fox in 2006. In 2011 she began a period of new collaboration in Oslo with Norwegian players, resulting in mobius ii (Hardanger fiddle and electronics) and Foraging music no 1 (clarinet and electronics). NOTAM, Oslo, generously supported these periods of residency in partnership with the University of Huddersfield, where she is CeReNeM Research Fellow. Recent work includes commissions for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2013 (Aandacht, for two pianos and electronics, written for Philip Thomas and Lisa Ullen), Sound-Scotland, Banchory 2014 (Waternish Ballad, for Scottish folk fiddle and electronics) and Stichting Huygens-Fokker (a 31-tone organ piece, premiered at Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, in 2015 by Masato Suzuki).

Bob Gilmore (19612015) was a musicologist writing about contemporary music in western and central Europe and North America, his work falling into the categories of composer biography, music theory and analysis, and the critical historiography of music. Areas of specialization included American experimental music, microtonal and spectral music, and the new music scene in Ireland. He was the author of