ANALYTICAL EXPLORATIONS OF CREATIVE INTERACTION AND COLLABORATIVE PROCESS THROUGH COMPOSITION, REHEARSAL AND PERFORMANCE: A COMPOSER-COMPOSER CASE STUDY OF ACOUSTIC MUSIC WITH LIVE ELECTRONICS

Abstract

This thesis explores both the creative process and the creative product behind a unique and complex collaboration between two composers, called Endings (2012): firstly Jeremy Peyton Jones and secondly Kaffe Matthews. It interrogates the behavioural aspects and negotiations between the two composers in the compositional and rehearsal processes, in the run-up to three performances. Using ethnomusicological methodologies towards data collection (rehearsal recordings, interviews, studio work) and analysis (discourse in compositional discussion, rehearsal), the thesis offers new understandings on collaboration, specifically the fluidity and complexity of the interaction between composers who work in two very different ways: Peyton Jones, who composes with scored, conventional notation, rehearsing with his ensemble Regular Music II; and Matthews, who works improvisationally with live electronics and electroacoustics, both with her surrounding sonic material and pre-existing samples. The thesis finds two core important conclusions, which contribute to our current knowledge and understanding of music and collaboration. Firstly, pre-existing models of collaboration segregate behaviours into ‘types’. Endings offers an example where such types cannot always be applied so exclusively. And secondly, collaboration in the rehearsal of Endings contradicts conventional rehearsal models which state talking should be kept to a minimum. The majority of the collaborative process between Peyton Jones and Matthews rests heavily on conversation.