Music and Numbers

An international conference hosted by the Department of Music Canterbury Christ Church University

14 – 15 May 2010

A conference on ‘Music and Numbers’, in association with Sounds New and the Institute of Musical Research (IMR), and supported by the society for Music Analysis, will be hosted by the Department of Music of Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), on Friday and Saturday, 14-15 May 2010.

The conference will coincide with and augment the long-established Sounds New Music Festival, which is closely affiliated with CCCU. The 2010 festival (7-16 May) focuses on the number seven (7). Ensemble Intercontemporain, Cantus Ansambl, the London Sinfonietta, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players are only a few of the many ensembles and artists who will feature in the festival, while composers and film-makers will also participate and introduce their work.

Building on the festival theme, the conference will provide an overview of the latest scholarly work on music, proportion and numbers in composition, and aims to bring together scholars, composers and performers with interests in this area.

Proposals are invited on topics that address specific compositional and/or analytical aspects of repertoires and genres, or the work of individual composers. Possible themes might include, but are not limited to: the use of numbers in compositional theory and practice in the Western classical tradition; proportion and cryptographic techniques; the Fibonacci series and magic squares; other numerical calculations and constructs, particularly those used in compositions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as the use of numbers in algorithmic composition; the intersections of music and mysticism – in as much as these relate to composition with numbers – from Pythagoras to the present day. Proposals from composers and sonic artists demonstrating how working with numbers underpins their own creative strategies will be particularly welcome.

The conference key-note speakers are Professor Douglas Jarman (Emeritus Professor, Royal Northern College of Music), Dr Ruth Tatlow (Associate Professor, Stockholm University), and Roy Howat (Keyboard Research Fellow, Royal Academy of Music). 

Potential contributors are invited to submit abstracts for:

 i) individual papers (20 minutes, plus 10 minutes question time)