Skip to main content Accessibility
Home
Alumni
Professor Mike Vaughan

    Professor Mike Vaughan

    Title
    Professor
    Location
    CBB2.063
    Contact me
    Via email
    Phone
    01782 734077
    Email
    m.p.vaughan@keele.ac.uk

    Biography

    Biography

    Professor, studied at Dartington College of Arts with James Fulkerson and Frank Denyer and Nottingham University with Nigel Osborne and Peter Nelson where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1989 for work based on the use of general compositional algorithms. In 1988 he was awarded an Arts Council bursary to continue research in compositional strategies for solo instrument and tape at Birmingham University and in 1994 was nominated for a major Arts Foundation award. From 1987 he worked as a freelance composer and lecturer in composition and Music Technology before moving to Keele in 1991 to help develop and launch the first undergraduate programme in Electronic Music. He currently teaches on both Music and Music Technology courses.

    His main research area is in composition, including a variety of electroacoustic works in addition to solo and ensemble instrumental pieces. These have been performed or broadcast in the UK and worldwide and have received recognition in the form of prizes in a number of international competitions, including the Bourges festival of electroacoustic music (1987 and 1991), the Prix Ars Electronica (1992 and 1994) as well as programming in international events. These include the International Computer Music Conference (1990, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2001) and the Festival Internacional de Music Electroacustica, Havana (1998, 2004). They have been performed by a variety of well-established ensembles, soloists and organisations including Lontano, L’itineraire, Elision, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gianpaolo Antongirolami, Susanna Borsch, Mieko Kanno, Jane Chapman, Ensemble Synergy, Christoph Kirschke and Primoz Parovel.

    These research activities have included a number of `related and on-going composition ‘projects’, each with its own particular focus:
     
    In Memoriam … [tribute to Eric Dolphy]:  This is a broad project that looks at different strategies for including forms of improvisation and indeterminacy in the context of music which is predominantly ‘composed’. Based on a core ensemble of recorder, trumpet (or saxophone), bass clarinet, percussion and double bass, the set of works consist of solos, works for solo instruments with pre-recorded soundfiles and/or live electronics, an interactive piece for up to 8-channels of pre-recorded sound and an instrumental trio. These individual pieces can be viewed as ‘6 layers’ that can be performed alone or sequenced in different ways for various performance situations.

    …Again into Light:a group of works that seeks to exploit the unique timbre and innonational flexibility of ‘early’ instruments (including the harpsichord, recoder and viola da gamba) in the context of a contemporary musical aesthetic.

    Collective Memories: Three works composed using techniques associated with spectral harmony including Infinite Skies.., commissioned by the Australian ensemble Elision who included it in their programme for the 2001 Queensland Biennale Music Festival, conducted by Pierre-André Vallade

    School of Humanities
    Chancellor's Building
    Keele University
    Staffordshire
    ST5 5AA
    Tel: +44 (0) 1782 733109

    Head of School
    Dr Nick Seager
    Room: CBB1.038 (Chancellor's Building, 'B' Extension)
    Tel: +44 (0) 1782 733142
    Email: n.p.seager@keele.ac.uk

    School and college outreach
    Tel: +44 (0) 1782 734009
    Email: outreach@keele.ac.uk