I had the pleasure of joining colleagues from music at the 2017 Best Practice in Artistic Research in Music Symposium held at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney on 27 – 29 September. Conference Organisers Neal Peres Da Costa, Linda Barwick, Jeanell Carrigan, Damien Ricketson and Christa Jacenyik-Trawoger had drawn together a host of key names in music who brought diverse perspectives to some of the fundamental questions surround artistic research: how it materialises and presents in practice, its connections with science, with knowledge truth and beauty, questions of metrics, funding and its relationship with practitioners outside academia.
But this was no dry talkfest. Fantastic performances and musical illustrations were incorporated throughout the program. Keynote presenter Lisa Lim gave an intriguing insight into her compositional approach which included a performance of her work “An Elemental Thing“ by Eugene Ughetti.
On day three the discussion turned to the topic of metrics for artistic research in music particularly encompassing the ERA, Impact and engagement landscape. Lively debate threw up a few practical steps that the discipline, and possibly the wider tertiary creative arts community, may wish to take forward and I am sure that we will hear more of these over the coming months.
The event closed with the delivery of the Alfred Hook Lecture by recorder virtuoso and artistic director Genevieve Lacey – a mesmerising mix of musical recollections and visual illustrations recounted in an almost poetic presentation entitled Life in Music: Field notes from a practitioner