School of Music

Dr Martin Iddon

Senior Lecturer in Composition and Critical Musicology

m.iddon@leeds.ac.uk

BA (Dunelm), MPhil, PhD (Cantab.)

Martin Iddon is a composer and musicologist. He joined the staff at Leeds in December 2009, having previously lectured at University College Cork and Lancaster University. He studied composition and musicology at the Universities of Durham and Cambridge, and has also studied composition privately with Steve Martland, Chaya Czernowin, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi. At some point in between, he also taught school children about composing music with computers and, somewhat incongruously, worked as a headhunter in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. His musicological research has largely focussed on post-war music in Germany and the United States of America. As a composer he has worked with numerous ensembles and performers, across Europe and North America, including Ensemble SurPlus, Ensemble Modelo62, Either/Or, ekmeles, Richard Craig, Rei Nakamura, and Jon Hepfer, and his music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

• Composition
• Music in Germany and the United States after 1945
• the Darmstadt New Music Courses
• the Music of John Cage

Martin has twin research interests in composition and musicology. As a musicologist, his work has focussed especially on the Darmstadt New Music Courses and the composers and music featured there, not least Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Brian Ferneyhough, and Helmut Lachenmann. He is also currently working on the pianist David Tudor's realisations of John Cage's indeterminate work in the 1950s. His compositional work has been performed Europe and North America and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He is interested, too, in collaboration within composition, and often works together with Antti Sakari Saario, as [zygote], and has worked previously with Proto-type Theater.

• Director of Student Education

Books (single authored)

• John Cage and David Tudor: Correspondence on Interpretation and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract)
• Luigi Nono (Bristol: Intellect, under contract)

Books (edited)

• Other Darmstadts , ed. with Paul Attinello and Christopher Fox (= Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 1) (Routledge, 2007) (126pp.)
• Recycling and Innovation in Contemporary Music, ed. with Lisa Colton (= Contemporary Music Review, vol. 29, no. 3) (Oxford: Routledge, 2010) (119pp.)

Contributions to books and conference proceedings

• 'Pamphlets and Protests: The End of Stockhausen's Darmstadt', Musikkulturen in der Revolte. Studien zu Rock, Avantgarde und Klassik im Umfeld von '1968', ed. Beate Kutschke (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008), 5563
• 'Toward a Minor Music: American Experimentalism at Darmstadt, 19581974', Travelling Sounds: Music, Migration and Identity in the U.S. and Beyond, eds. Wilfried Raussert and John Miller Jones (Berlin: LIT, 2008), 125148

Periodical articles

• 'The Haus that Karlheinz Built: Composition, Authority and Control at the 1968 Darmstadt Ferienkurse', Musical Quarterly, vol. 87, 87-118
• 'On the Entropy Circuit: Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II', Contemporary Music Review, vol. 25, nos. 12, 93-105
• 'Gained in Translation: Words about Cage in late 1950s Germany', Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 89-104
• Translation: Gianmario Borio, 'Work Structure and Musical Representation: Reflections on Adorno's Analyses for Interpretation', Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 53-76
• 'Trying to Speak: Between Politics and Aesthetics, Darmstadt 197072', Twentieth-century Music, vol. 3, no. 2, 255-75
• 'The Dissolution of the Avant-garde', Search: Journal for New Music and Culture, Winter 2008, no.1, online at: http://searchnewmusic.org/index.html
• 'Platos Chamber of Secrets: On Eavesdropping and Truth(s)', Performance Research, vol. 15 (2010), no. 3, 6-10
• 'Serial Canon(s): Boulez's Structures and Nono's Variations', Contemporary Music Review, vol. 29 (2010), no. 3, 265-275
• 'Darmstadt Schools', Tempo, vol. 65, no. 257 (April 2011), 2-8

Reviews

• Amy C. Beal, New Music, New Allies: Americal Experimental Music in West Germany from the Zero Hour to Reunification, Notes, June 2007, vol. 63, no. 4, 856-59
• Janet Halfyard (ed.), Berio's Sequenzas: Essays on Performance, Composition and Analysis, Studies in Musical Theatre, 2008, vol. 2, no. 1, 115-17
• Nick Collins and Julio d'Escrivan (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music, Notes, December 2008, vol. 65, no. 2, 316-19
• Iannis Xenakis, Music and Architecture, ed. and trans. Sharon Kanach, Notes, December 2009, vol. 66, no. 2, 308-11
• David Metzger, Musical Modernism at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, Notes, December 2010, vol. 67, no. 2, 317-20
• Mordant Music, MisinforMation, viewfinder, March 2011, no. 82, 30

Editions (critical & other)

• Mauricio Kagel bei den Internationalen Ferienkurse für neue Musik in Darmstadt: eine Dokumentation, ed. with Björn Heile (Hofheim: Wolke, 2009) (148pp.)

Compositions

• ... à son dernier soupir (2006), string trio, ca. 12' (Society for the Promotion of New Music shortlisted work and semi-finalist, Donald Aird Memorial Composers Competition)
• dead white male (edit) (2006-07), fixed media, 10' (in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario)
• closed vessel: Ausstrahlung (2007), fixed media, 1' (in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario)
• ventilation (2007), six voices and glass harmonica, ca. 30'
• I never knew it was the longest day (2007), any number of strings, any duration
• Rapt before the sky (2007), solo flute, ca. 8' (commissioned by Richard Craig)
• proposition 6a: ceci n'est pas une machine de guerre (Refrain) (2008), fixed media, amplified piano, live electronics, ca. 10' (in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario)
• Lichtschatten (2008), chamber ensemble, 4' (SPNM commission)
• dead white male (2006-08), fixed media, ca. 48' (in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario)
• a dream silence, full of murmurs (2008), amplifed chamber ensemble, 7'
• virtuoso (2008-09), fixed media, 80' (commisioned by Proto-type Theater as soundscape for Virtuoso (working title); in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario)
• drift (2009), any forces, any duration (SPNM commission)
• switch (2009), horn, trumpet, viola, indeterminate duration
• head down among the stems and bells (2009), amplified prepared piano, ca. 12'30"
• Mohl ip (2009-10), string quartet, ca. 9'30"
• Danaë (2009-10), string trio (commsioned by Either/Or), ca. 12'30"
• tu as navré (2010), bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, cello, double bass, indeterminate duration
• spinther (2010), chamber ensemble (commissioned by Ensemble Modelo62), 7'
• almagestes (2010), two or more instruments (commissioned by the Machine Project for the Little William Theater | Festival of New Music at the Hammer Museum (UCLA)), any duration
• Ἁμαδρυάδες (2010), six voices and glass harmonica (commissioned by ekmeles), ca. 17'
• complicity simplex (2010-11), accordion, double bass, and fixed media (commissioned by Eva Zöllner and John Eckhardt), 8' (in collaboration with Antti Sakari Saario and Adam York Gregory)
• pneuma.pistis (2010-11), solo voice (commissioned by Nina Whiteman), 1'

Recordings

• propostion 6a: ceci n'est pas une machine de guerre (Refrain), CD release on: Sound Report: The Comfort of Strangers (Sound Network, 2008)
• closed vessel: Ausstrahlung, DVD release on: FrammentAzioni (Taukay Edizioni Musicali, 2009)
• closed vessel: Ausstrahlung (2007), CD release on: Soundtrack to a Catastrophic World (cantaudio32, 2010)

Radio / TV broadcasts

• drift (2009), broadcast as a part of 'Shuffle I' on 'Hear and Now', BBC Radio 3, 10 October 2009 (broadcast also included a brief interview)
• Mohl ip (2009-10), broadcast on 'ZeitTon', Österreischer Rundfunk 1, 15 March 2011

Public Performances

• ...à son dernier soupir (2006). Premiere: members of the New Llano Quartet, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 15 April 2007; European premiere: Ensemble SurPlus, Stuttgart, Germany, 19 August 2007; UK premiere: members of the Edinburgh Quartet, University of Glasgow Memorial Hall, Glasgow, Scotland, 27 November 2009
• dead white male (edit) (2006-07). Premiere: Erickson Hall, University of California at San Diego, CA, USA, 1 June 2008; Canadian premiere: Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival V, Oscar Peterson Hall, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1 October 2008; European premiere: Jack Hylton Room, Lancaster University, UK, 14 March 2009
• closed vessel: Ausstrahlung (2007). Premiere: Erickson Hall, University of California at San Diego, CA, USA, 1 June 2008; European premiere: FrammentAzioni Project, Contemporanea Festival, Udine, Italy, 11 October 2008; UK premiere: The Playroom, Lancaster University, UK, 5 May 2010; South American premiere: Centro de Investigaciones y Desarrollos Computacionales en Musica 'Francisco Kröpfl', Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1 October 2010; Other performances: Zeppelin 2009, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain, 11, 12 & 13 December 2009; Electronic Music Foundation, New York City, NY, USA, 1-2 June 2010; Stony Brook University, NY, USA, 3-5 June 2010; Rhode Island College, Providence, RI, USA, 18 June 2010; Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1 October 2010; EMM Festival, Lewis University, Romeoville, IL, 14-16 October 2010; Fourth Annual Kentucky New Music Festival, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 21 October 2010; Twenty-first Biannual International Electroacoustic Music Festival, Levenson Recital Hall, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, 26 October 2010; SALT Gallery, New York City, NY, USA, 13 November 2010; Media Arts Video Studio, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT, USA, 17 November 2010; Pina Bausch Theatre, Folkwang University, Essen, Germany, 3 December 2010; Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA, USA, 3 December 2010; The Art of Record Production Conference, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK, 3 December 2010; George Enesco Concert Hall, National University of Music Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania, 21 December 2010
• ventilation (2007). Premiere: Ana-Maria Alarcon-Jiminez, Sarah Felong, Brian Christian, Ian Power, Ben Power, Chris Tonelli (voices and glass harmonica), UCSD Festival of New Music, University of California at San Diego, CA, USA, 9 May 2008
• I never knew it was the longest day (2007). Premiere: Guthrie & Streb, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA, USA, 18 April 2008; European premiere: Red Note Ensemble, Noisy Nights, Traverse Theatre Bar, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 8 June 2009
• Rapt before the sky (2007). Premiere: Ian Power, The Loft, Price Center, University of California at San Diego, CA, USA, 5 March 2009; European premiere: Ruth Morley, Noisy Nights, Traverse Theatre Bar, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 20 April 2009
• proposition 6a: ceci n'est pas une machine de guerre (Refrain) (2008). Premiere: LICA-MANTIS Electroacoustic Music Festival 2008, Great Hall, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK, 1 March 2008; US premiere: Erickson Hall, University of California at San Diego, CA, USA, 1 June 2008; Other performances: 'The Comfort of Strangers', Futuresonic, Contact Theatre, Manchester, UK, 3 May 2008; Sixth Biennial International Conference on Music since 1900, Keele University, UK, 2 July 2009; 'Vinosonic', Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, IL, USA, 27 September 2009; Clothworkers' Centenary Concert Hall, School of Music, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 27 January 2010; UNC CHAT Digital Arts Festival, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 16, 17, 18 & 19 February 2010
• Lichtschatten (2008). Premiere: Trinity College of Music Contemporary Music Group, 'Sonic Illuminations', BFI Southbank, London, UK, 10 May 2008
• dead white male (2006-08). Premiere: as soundscape for Proto-type Theater's About Silence, Forest Fringe, Bristo Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland, 17 & 18 August 2008; US premiere: 'Twelve Nights', Harold Golen Gallery, Miami, FL, USA, 6 December 2009; Other performances: as soundscape for Proto-type Theater's About Silence, Battersea Arts Centre, London, UK, 13, 14 & 15 November 2008; Greenroom, Manchester, 17 May 2009
• virtuoso (2008-09). National tour as soundscape for Proto-type Theater's Virtuoso (working title), April-May 2009, including performances at Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster (22-23 April 2009), Dartington College of Arts (30 April 2009), Warwick Arts Centre (6-7 May 2009), Greenroom, Manchester (14 May 2009), Colchester Arts Centre (20 May 2009); Other performances: Axis Arts Centre, Crewe (29 October 2009), The Workshop Theatre, Leeds (25-26 November 2009), Wickham Theatre, Bristol (24 February 2010)
• drift (2009). Premiere: as part of 'Shuffle I', notes inégales, Kings Place, London, UK, 6 September 2009
• switch (2009). Premiere: Red Note Ensemble, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland, 12 October 2009
• head down among the stems and bells (2009). Premiere: Ian Power, iBeam Music Studio, Brooklyn, New York City, USA, 28 March 2010; European premiere: Catherine Laws, 'Samuel Beckett: Out of the Archive', Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, York, UK, 25 June 2011; Other performance: Ian Power, The Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA, USA, 11 April 2010
• Danaë (2009-10). Premiere: Either/Or, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York City, USA, 27 March 2010; Other performance: members of the Momenta Quartet, 67 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, USA, 25 June 2010
• Mohl ip (2009-10). Premiere: Kairos Quartett, Schömer-Haus, Klosterneuburg, Austria, 12 March 2011; Other performance: Kairos Quartett, Musikschule, St. Veit, Austria, 13 March 2011
• tu as navré (2010). Premiere: Ensemble SurPlus, E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany, 28 February 2010
• almagestes (2010). Premiere: Luke Storm and Doug Tornquist (tubas), Hammer Museum, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 18 September 2010; Other performances: Andrew Tholl and Andrew McIntosh (violins), Hammer Museum, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 16 October 2010; Daniel Corral and Isaac Schankler (accordions), Hammer Museum, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 6 November 2010
• spinther (2010). Premiere: Ensemble Modelo62, Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 2 December 2010; Other performances: Ensemble Modelo62, Artaud Theatre, Brunel University, London, UK, 3 December 2010; Ensemble Modelo62, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, 6 December 2010
• complicity simplex (2010-11). Premiere: The Slide Show Secret (Eva Zöllner and John Eckhardt), Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 18 February 2011
• pneuma.pistis (2010-11). Premiere: Nina Whiteman, Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, 17 March 2011

Keynote & invited lectures

• 'Musical Borrowing', Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK, 22 March 2011
• 'Translating Cage: David Tudor and the aesthetics of indeterminacy', University of Huddersfield, UK, 13 April 2010
• 'Music as Physical Theatre', University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, 4 March 2010
• 'The Performer's Body', Musikhochschule Freiburg, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany, 27 February 2010
• Presentations at Weekend on Music at Darmstadt, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK, 19-21 February 2010
• Workshops on Composition-as-Research, 'Sound Thought 2009', Glasgow University, Scotland, UK, 27 November 2009
• 'Translating Cage: David Tudor and the Aesthetics of Indeterminacy', Brunel University, UK, 28 October 2009
• Guest lecture on musical borrowing, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK, 21 September 2009
• 'Composing in the post-avant-garde era', Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 22 August 2009
• Panel member: Practice-as-Research session, 'Creativity and Change in Research', Lancaster University, UK, 3 June 2009
• 'Translating Cage: David Tudor and the Aesthetics of Indeterminacy', Lancaster University, UK, 3 June 2009
• 'Translating Cage: David Tudor and the Aesthetics of Indeterminacy', Sussex University, UK, 27 May 2009
• 'On his own music', University of California at San Diego, USA, 29 May 2008
• 'Transubstantiation and Radical Mistranslation in pièces de chair II: Sylvano Bussotti's portrait of John Cage and David Tudor ("und Heinz-Klaus Metzger ist auch dabei")', Royal Northern College of Music, UK, 22 February 2008
• 'Toward a Minor Music: American Experimentalism at Darmstadt', Lancaster University, UK, 13 June 2007
• 'On his own music', Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, 11 August 2007
• 'Does the composer need the musicologist?', roundtable discussion, 'Chapitres Tournés en Tous Sens III', University of Huddersfield, UK, 7 June 2007
• 'Toward a Minor Music: American Experimentalism at Darmstadt', Bristol University, UK, 24 April 2007
• 'A Tale of Two Translations: anthropoemic and anthropophagic strategies in the reception of Cage at Darmstadt', King's College London, UK, 7 March 2007
• 'A Small Town in Germany: Darmstadt and the Origins of Multiple Serialism', Forum of Composers and Musicians, University of Leeds, UK, 23 February 2007
• Nono's La presenza storica nella musica d'oggi: establishing authorship through primary sources', Working with Sketches Study Day, Arts and Humanities Research Council Music Archival Research Skills Training Programme, University of Huddersfield, UK, 21 October 2006
• 'Cage Defended against his Devotees', 'Hung Up on the Number 64', John Cage Study Day, University of Huddersfield, UK, 4 February 2006
• 'Trying to Speak: Between Politics and Aesthetics, Darmstadt, 197072', University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 18 Feburary 2005
• 'The Dissolution of the Avant-garde', University of Leeds, UK 28 October 2004
• 'The Haus that Karlheinz Built: Composition, Authority, and Control at the 1968 Darmstadt Ferienkurse', University of Cambridge, 15 May 2002

Conference papers (oral)

• 'Praxis and Poiesis in Indeterminate Music: the Case of David Tudor', Performance Studies International Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, 14 July 2011
• 'Earth/Water: On elements of and in Chaya Czernowin's recent music', Art Musics of Israel: Identities, Ideologies, Influences, Institute for Musical Research, London, UK, 29 March 2011
• 'Spectres of Darmstadt', plenary session, Seventh Biennial Conference for Music after 1900, Keele University, UK, 2 July 2009
• 'Serial Canons: Nono's Variations and Boulez's Structures', 'Nothing New? Understanding Newness in Medieval and Contemporary Music', University of Huddersfield, UK, 26 April 2009
• 'Gained in Translation: Words about Cage in late 1950's Germany', Lyrica Society Session, American Musicological Society/Society for Music Theory Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2 November 2006
• 'Darmstadt Schools', 'Darmstadt, Du Stadt meiner Trume: The International Reception of Darmstadt as the Shangri-La of Musical Modernism', Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, 26 September 2006
• 'Gained in Translation: Words about Cage in late 1950's Germany', Society for Musicology in Ireland Conference, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Republic of Ireland, 5 May 2006
• 'On the Entropy Circuit: Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II', One-day New Music Symposium, University College Cork, Republic of Ireland, 24 March 2006
• 'Gained in Translation: Words about Cage in late 1950's Germany', Royal Musical Association Annual Conference, Manchester, UK, 4 November 2005
• 'Pamphlets and Protests: The End of Stockhausen's Darmstadt', '1968: Musik und gesellschaftliche Protest', Katholisches Akademie Schwerte, Germany, 28 September 2005
• 'A Stranger in Paradise? The meaning of Cage at Darmstadt', Fifth Biennial Twentieth-century Music Conference, University of Sussex, UK, 25 August 2005
• 'The Dissolution of the Avant-garde', Royal Musical Association Study Day: Twenty-first Century Music and Aesthetics, Royal Northern College of Music, UK, 14 May 2005
• 'Sex, Blood, and Rock'n'Roll: Diegetic Dark Rock and the Validation of the Gothic', Society for Musicology in Ireland Conference, University College Cork, Republic of Ireland, 7 May 2005
• 'Sex, Blood, and Rock'n'Roll: Diegetic Dark Rock and the Validation of the Gothic', Bradford Film Festival Film and Music Conference, National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, UK, 12 March 2005

• AHRC Early Career Research Fellowship, October 2010-June 2011
• Ernst von Siemens Grant-in-Aid, May 2009
• Lancaster University Small Research Grant, January-February 2009
• British Academy Small Research Grant, March-September 2006
• Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Jahresstipendium, August 2002-July 2003

• PhD examiner for Tom Begbie (Dartington College for the Arts)
• Editor of Intellect Critical Guides to Contemporary Composers
• Organiser: New Music Symposium, University College Cork, Ireland, March 2006
• Organiser: The Music of Emmanuel Nunes, University of Leeds, UK, December 2007
• Organiser: What Does 'Musical Material' Mean Today? Developments after Adorno, Institute of Musical Research, University of London, UK, July 2008
• Jury member, The Julius F. Jezek Prize in Composition, Eiler Foundation, Encinitas, California, 2008-present
• Jury member, Staubach Honoraria, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, 2009-present

Current Research Students

• Lauren Redhead (composition)
• Dani Sutcliffe (musicology)
• Cliff Laine (musicology)
• Dan Wilson (composition)

Past Research Students

• Phil Taylor (musicology)
• Roddy Hawkins (musicology)

The Dissolution of the Avant-garde, Darmstadt 1968-1984