Series 4
the future of music and music creation
Series Four of Surroundscapes focuses on “Future of Music and Music Creation”. In this series, we talk to musicians and technologists from around the world and investigate two main areas of the music industry. The first of these is new ways of both composing and performing music often using new technologies and the second is how songwriters and musicians can make a fair living in the age of digital technologies and platforms, centering around new ways of creating value and connecting with audiences – both large and small.
Episode 10
Bob Boster
JULY 27, 2021: Bob Boster (President – Clear-Com)
Bob Boster runs a large manufacturer of live and broadcast communications and combines this with a side passion and profession as a sound artist. We discuss how this came about and how he manages to juggle these two threads of his life. We dive into sound art, how a niche artist from USA can economically plan a 20-30 date European tour and much more.
Episode 9
Paul Frazer
JULY 20, 2021: Paul Frazer (Never Not Nothing)
Never Not Nothing have been described as anarchic electro psych punk noise, and Paul Frazer, one half of the band describes how it came into being with a unique launch event for industry insiders. We move on to talk about how the band progressed and then dealt with the pandemic lockdown by creating an immersive sound and sight stage in order to make compelling videos. We finish by talking about the use of haptic suits, in-ear monitors and VR glasses to create the live events of the future. Along the way we learn how the band changed its original name from Black Futures in order to allow that phrase to be used by the Black Lives Matter movement without confusion.
Episode 8
Glen Rowe
AUGUST 25, 2020: MATTEO LUPPI, CEO OF SOUNDMACHINE
Glen Rowe has had a long and very varied career in music from drumming in bands, to working for an instrument manufacturer, touring managing Muse and coming off the road in order to create projects of lasting value. He tells us about the many and varied activities of his company Kyoto – from a recording studio featuring a ‘Drumbrella’, to rehearsal spaces, creative communities and artist management done in a new and humane way. We also talk about the charity that Glen founded – the Neko Trust – and the amazing work that it does to support and educate young creatives. We wonder just how many hours he has in his days!
Episode 7
Ben Richter
JULY 6, 2021: Ben Richter (Composer, Accordionist, and Director of Ghost Ensemble)
Ben Richter has created a career with a number of different elements. He is a teacher, a performer, the director of an ensemble and a recording artist. One of the things that we discuss is active listening and how music can be used to help to alter people’s time horizons and better understand slow-moving but profound phenomena such as climate change. We also talk about different ways that musicians and other artists can add value to their content in order to reward true fans and find new income streams.
Episode 6
Jon Cotton
JUNE 29, 2021: Jon Cotton (Founder – Poseidon Music)
Jon Cotton is a producer of both artists and content and this episode really focuses on what this means. Jon talks about the role of a producer in finding ways to connect an artist to their audience and how this has changed in the digital age. He discusses the role of marketing on digital platforms in order to build global awareness and we touch on next ways to present music in a live context.
Episode 5
Theon Cross
JUNE 22, 2021: Theon Cross (Jazz Tuba Player and Composer)
This episode covers Theon Cross’s musical beginnings, the Tomorrows Warriors project and how this changed his musical style and aspirations leading to Guildhall School of Music and Drama and then Sons of Kemet. We finish by talking about living in lockdown, discovering looping and other electronic technology and making an album using just the Tuba and finally coming back to performing with an avatar-based event at SXSW.
Episode 4
Imogen Heap
JUNE 15, 2021: Imogen Heap (Grammy-winning Singer and Songwriter)
Imogen Heap is uniquely positioned to talk about new ways of composing and presenting music with her work on the MiMu gloves and the Listening Chair as well as different ways of making albums whilst staying sane and balanced. As well as this we discuss the business aspects of music and the Creative Passport and Life of a Song projects.
Episode 3
Zoë Keating
JUNE 8, 2021: Zoë Keating (Cellist and Composer)
In this episode, Zoë talks about the San Francisco arts warehouse scene, hosting unique performance events, being discovered by NPR at an event reproducing the experience of a nuclear explosion and developing a multi-stranded career as a performer, technologist, composer and film scorer.
Episode 2
Ryan Edwards
JUNE 1, 2021: Ryan Edwards (CEO and Founder – Audoo)
We talk about the feeling of hearing your song being played in a public space, realizing that you are not making any money out of that and founding a company to do something about that. Audoo are trying to improve the process of song rights payments by producing a hardware device to capture and aggregate information on what songs are being played in public spaces and feeding this information back to performing rights organizations.
Episode 1
Claire L Evans
May 25, 2021: Claire L Evans (Author ‘Broad Band’ and Singer, songwriter YACHT)
In the first episode of series 4 we cover the feminist history of computing, albums as research projects, using Google Magenta AI as a compositional tool on YACHT’s album ‘Chain Tripping’, the changes in the platform economy as seen by musicians, making a living as a musician in pandemic times and more. This talk is one of the most far-reaching and resonant that we have had and makes a great start to this series.