Papers
On 'Skin Deep', collaboration and identity: … and he said, “Well, let’s make it pink!”
Presented at RMA study day 'IMAGE, MUSIC, IDENTITY: Constructing and Experiencing Identities through Music within Visual Culture', on 6 June 2009 at the University of Nottingham. Also presented at the University of Leeds School of Music Postgraduate Study Day, 20 May 2009.
With links to the collaborative partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds (DARE), my paper touches on the identity of my project (within the schools of PCI and Music) and of interdisciplinary opera studies in the 21st century, and deals with the conception, realisation and reception of the new operetta, 'Skin Deep', by David Sawer and Armando Iannucci.
Using 'Skin Deep' as a case study, this paper focuses on the ideal of ‘synergy’, whereby the created elements of libretto, music and visual production are made to come together and to form a work which is a cohesive whole and which adds up, in artistic terms, to more than the sum of its parts. I will comment on the degree of success of 'Skin Deep' and its attempt at synergy, making reference to interviews with composer, librettist and others, to press reviews and to audience response. Within this context of synergetic aspiration, I look also at the labelling and identity of 'Skin Deep' as ‘operetta’, the lineage of and reasoning for this assumed name.
Finally I will compare issues of visual and musical production and the differing audience identity and reception in Leeds and on tour in Salford, through observation, media coverage and audience questionnaires from both venues
Like (1)Today's Leaver: An experience of school in England
This piece of work was originally conceived as a poster presentation for the University of Newcastle's symposium on Music Skills in Higher Education on 16 September 2009. I was then invited to expand the idea into a paper to present at the symposium. While the subject of this paper is not my main area of research currently, I am aiming here to share knowledge and insight gained in my previous career as a secondary teacher and Head of Music.
I will outline, in this paper, the progression experienced by pupils in the state school system in England from entry aged 4, to leaving aged 18. I will chart the legacy of the Education Reform Act of 1988, highlighting government initiatives that have resulted in an experience of school structured around nationally standardised assessment points. I will demonstrate how this has led to an educational climate with teaching priorities that are exam-led and result-driven. I will present the resultant priorities embedded in learners who have had experience exclusively of this system. I will go on to illuminate some of the changing criteria for examination in Music at GCSE and ‘A’ level, and the resultant learning outcomes for students. I will theorise as to the likely skills and knowledge-base of students after these public examinations in Music, and their preparation for entry into Higher Education at 18.
Jennifer Daniel: A music graduate of the University of Sheffield in 1999, I then completed a PGCE Secondary Music at the Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000 and went on to teach Music in Manchester and Cheshire for eight years. I have taught Music, Music Technology and Performance Studies to ‘A’ level, and have been Head of Music in a large secondary school in Warrington. I am currently an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Holder with the University of Leeds and Opera North, and occasionally work as a supply teacher in secondary and primary schools across Merseyside. Beginning in September 2009 I will be teaching undergraduates in Music at the University of Leeds.
Opera studies in the 21st Century: New directions
This paper was given for the interdisciplinary student conference, 'Enterprising Creativity: Innovation and Future of Arts and Humanities Research' in November 2009 at the University of Leeds. It was presented as part of a panel with Dr Kara McKechnie and Rebecca Walsh, Head of Education at Opera North.
Herbert Lindenberger in 2006 highlighted the lack of connection between various scholarly disciplines in their studies of opera. He claimed that opera studies is ‘an orphan that cannot claim a natural home in any one of the existing humanistic disciplines.’ Lindenberger went on to advocate an interdisciplinary approach to opera.
I will here outline my approaches to interdisciplinary opera studies, working between two schools at the University of Leeds, and with Opera North as a partner in industry. I will describe my ethnographical methodology applied to the study of the work of Opera North, focussing on the commissioning, creation and production of new works. I also engage in analytical and musicological research, and will suggest ways in which these approaches can work in synergy with one another.
Concentrating on the creation of new works, and the adaptation of older forms, I will show how interdisciplinary methodology, as described above, can illuminate the tensions inherent in the work of the contemporary opera company: their need to appeal to a conservative subscription audience, and their response to the remit of the Arts Council to produce work that breaks new ground, and that is enterprising, innovative and new.
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