'Raising Public Awareness of the Cultural Impact of Musical Minimalism'

Description of impact

a) Invitation by the BBC to give a pre-concert talk on the music of Louis Andriessen at the Barbican Centre for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s ‘total immersion’ day on Andriessen’s music, and appear as a guest on Radio 3’s Hear and Now (both on 13 February 2016)

b) Invitation by the Barbican Centre to write online profile on Reich, Glass and Adams for their Sounds That Changed America festival:

http://www.barbican.org.uk/reichglassadams/

c) Invitation by the Barbican Centre to write programme notes for Reich, Glass and Adams concerts as part of the Sounds That Changed America festival.

d) Recent articles in Gramophone (in-depth interview with Steve Reich and conductor Kristjan Järvi) (October 2016 issue) and Strad magazines on performing minimalist music for strings (November issue).

e) Recorded interview for Radio 4 in March 2016 for forthcoming series called 'All in a Chord', talking about Terry Riley’s 'In C' (due for broadcast in 2017).

Impact Summary for the General Public

a) Pre-concert talk was attended by around 60 members of the public, and Radio 3 receives on average around 2 million listeners (figures issued in May 2016);

b) I have enquired with Barbican website on data relating to views of the online article;

c) All the Barbican concerts were well attended with some completely sold out (Barbican has a seating capacity of 1,943);

d) Both Gramophone and Strad magazines have international circulation and strong web presence;

e) Radio 4 ratings were 11.5 million in the first half of 2016 (figures issued in August 2016).

Description of the underpinning research

Information was sourced from books, articles, scores and recordings. For the article in the Strad magazine, primary research also involved interviewing David Harrington (Kronos Quartet), Darragh Morgan (Fidelio Trio) and violinist Tim Fain. Research conducted at the Paul Sacher Stiftung as part of my Leverhulme Research Fellowship was also helpful.

Beneficiaries and reach of impact

General public – concert-goers and readers interested in contemporary music in general and minimalist music in particular

General Notes

The impact is still ongoing

Impact status	Ongoing
Impact date	2016
Impact level	Benefit