Artistic Research
For me the experience and action of self in music is primarily embodied, subjective and social. My priority is no longer to strive for an ever more precise technique. It’s to sound in commune with others that which comes to body in the moment. I don’t seek ever greater understanding of complex compositional processes to inform the expression of sound in music. I seek clarity and simplicity in the invitation to perform which constitutes any score I may present to others. My musical training and experience inform my approach, but the focus is on the embodied, shared experience of sound.
My practice is an ecologically sensitive and feminist making and thinking with others. Improvisations examine the archival vestiges inherent in the timbre and technique of my instruments. I do this in small acoustic collaborations in places whose historical sediment and acoustic have agency in our improvisations.​
I have been invited to present my research at, among others, LAV in Madrid, University of the Arts Helsinki, Canterbury Christchurch University, The RMA Music and/as Process Conference, Sound and Image at Greenwich University, The RMA annual conference, and at University for the Creative Arts​​​​
My work is published by Echo Journal. My PhD investigating the influence of instrument, gender and community on the improvising voice was completed in 2024.
I'm currently involved in research with David Leahy and Stevie Wishart which foregrounds the role of ecologies and our environment in music making.
Underscore and Invtiation Scores with David Leahy
David and I are exploring how we can improvise and research in and with our local ecologies. This builds on the Underscore practice David has developed. From it invitation scores often emerge. We see free improvisation as a life practice in which we think and make with our local environment. This takes from autotheory and the feminist theorising of Donna Haraway but is rooted in our local ecologies, human, woodland, urban and coastal.
