Academic Studies

This is a paper I gave at the RAM in April 2011. It discusses the nature of the musical digression, and its relation to literary form. It uses a theoretical framework derived from Viktor Shklovsky's notion of Ostranenie to critique models of musical narrative, and discusses both classical music - Schumann and Wagner - and pop song - The Specials and The Dresden Dolls. It is still a work in progress and all comments are welcome.

This paper seeks to address how the act of Enstrangement can be a means to negotiate, or even dissolve, boundaries between categories which are often seen as opposed or antagonistic: theoretical and creative, public and private, abstract and emotional, personal and political, and, especially, 'art' and 'life'. As well as the theory of Shklovskian Estrangement, I explore his practice as an 'enstranging' artist in the epistolary novel 'Letters Not About Love'. I consider the notion in relation to Ricoeur's 3-fold mimesis and Svetlana Boym's 'off-modern'. Enstrangement is explored as a creative principle in poetry by Mayakovsky and Frank O'Hara, and finally in my own work as a composer.

The life of Alice Espir which began on the 5 December 1901 at Colombes (Hautes-des-Seine) and ended so recently in Paris reflects many of the tribulations of our century. Destined to play a significant role in the present day resurgence of interest in the ...

A few years ago, I attended two piano recitals within days of each other: same hall, same piano, same acoustic. The only variable was the recitalist. One was diminutive and sculpted like fine porcelain, the other was distinctly porcine. Exhibit A became a human resonator, ...