New music collective

We are excited to announce the formation of the Open College of the Arts New Music Collective, which is open to all OCA students, irrespective of subject specialism. The aim of the group is to connect composition and performance, through practical experience of playing new music, including student works, improvisation and exploring well-known contemporary works. We hope that, in time, we will be able to develop a strong network of performers from the OCA’s student body, who will be able to embark on longer term collaborations with our student composers to allow them to hear their works played live.
The group’s first meeting will take place on Saturday 8 April at the Royal Northern College of Music (from 10am till 5pm) and will be directed by Carla Rees and Gavin Wayte. The day is open to all instrumentalists and singers, irrespective of previous experience. We expect a broad range of abilities and will be creating a friendly environment to allow participants to try out ideas and explore new skills without judgment! The day will include opportunities for solo performance (see the call for scores below), guided improvisation and ensemble playing. If you would like to take part, please contact OCA Course Support coursesupport@oca.ac.uk as soon as possible. If you have not already contacted Carla with information about your instrument, standard and experience, please also include this information.
We would also like to invite composers to submit scores for this event. We won’t know precisely which instruments will be available until nearer the time, so at this stage we are requesting pieces for any solo (unaccompanied) instrument or voice. You are welcome to perform your own piece; please indicate at submission if you would like to do this. Pieces will be accepted based on suitability and available performers. Composers of selected pieces will be expected to attend the event, and will be encouraged to take part in some of the performance-based activities of the day. If you would like to have your work considered, please send scores (Sibelius files and PDFs) to OCA Course Support by 8 March at the latest. coursesupport@oca.ac.uk
We are also looking for submissions of open-instrumentation ensemble works, ideally in the form graphic scores, that we can explore on the day. Again, please send these to OCA Course Support coursesupport@oca.ac.uk in PDF format by 8 March.
We’re very much looking forward to this new venture, and a day of creative music making.
Image Credit: Carla Rees