FROM THE HEAD OF DEPARTMENT The major piece of research news over the past term an event that also saw a display of materials from the has undoubtedly been the release in December of Daphne Oram archive. Coincidentally, at about the the results of the Research Assessment Exercise. same time, we also secured the purchase of Daphne Keith Negus has given a full appraisal of these in Oram’s original ‘Oramics’ machine, one of the first his contribution below so I will simply reiterate his ever electronic music composition systems. We point that having 70% of the Department’s work rated anticipate that this will lead to some very interesting as being either ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally future strands of research, as well as potential excellent’ was an exceptionally good outcome for us, collaborations with other high-profile partners. and a result that, in percentage terms, was exceeded Another indicator of the Department’s high standing by only one other department within the College as a in music research is the number and quality of PhD whole. The RAE will soon give way to the Research students we are able to attract. Even so, it was Excellence Framework (REF), and we shall shortly something of a pleasant surprise when I discovered begin to contemplate the potential implications for that we have enrolled no fewer than 20 PhD students the Department of this revised method of research in the department in the last calendar year, two of assessment. But for the moment we can draw whom have joined us on AHRC-funded scholarships breath and congratulate ourselves on the very fine (making a total of five students in the Department achievement this time around. holding such awards). This demonstrates that our However much emphasis the world at postgraduate research culture, a vitally important large puts on that particular HEFCE hoop-jumping aspect of our overall research environment, is in exercise, the outcome only succeeds in reducing to rude health. dry statistics the rich research environment that a The successes of these students are many and varied; department such as ours contains. At the heart of do visit the individual web pages of members of that is the work of our research units and centres, academic staff to see some of the areas hat our PhD so the creation of a new one, the Sound Practice students are working in. Research Unit, is an event of some significance. Let’s hope that 2009 proves to be as successful a year This unit brings together much of the cutting-edge for us as was 2008. creative work done in and around our Electronic Music Studios, and will provide a focus for future research and creative work in the areas betwixt and Stephen Cottrell between music, electronics, computing and so forth. The Unit was successfully launched in November, at FROM THE DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH This New Year sees the universities pre-occupied leading 3. Internationally excellent 2. Recognised with digesting, trying to understand, arguing about internationally 1. Recognised nationally. There is and predicting the potential consequences of the also a category of ‘U’ for unclassified. The overall latest Research Assess-ment Exercise (RAE). The profile has been arrived at by the assessing panel results were released to the public just after midnight considering three aspects of a department’s activity: on the morning of Thursday 18th December (and research outputs, research environment and carried in the edition of the Times Higher Education indicators of esteem. published on that day). As this was after the end of The Music Department at Goldsmiths received the term, as I write this, there has been no opportunity following profile (percentages): 4 (world-leading) – for members of the Department to discuss these 30; 3 (internationally ex-cellent) – 40; 2 (recognised results, so I cannot report much more here than the internationally) – 20; 1 (recognised nationally) – 10. basic ‘facts’ and some initial personal impressions. This ‘means’ that 70 per cent of the Department’s When the results of previous exercises were research activity (in categories 1 & 2) is judged to announced, each Department was given an overall be ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, summative rating which allowed easy comparison which is a pretty impressive achievement when you with other music departments and other departments consider the heavy teaching demands placed on the within the College. This time the overall grade has Department. It’s also quite an achievement when been replaced with so-called ‘quality profiles’ which you think about the range and diversity of research show the percentage of research activity deemed to activities and interests within the Department. fall within each of four categories: 4. World- 1 However, that profile is not allowed to stand- to allocate funding. Hopefully we will benefit alone, not with education being part of a public sector financially for submitting a higher percentage of permeated by an obsession with producing ‘league staff than some other institutions – although, at this tables’. The ‘quality profiles’ (already quantitative, stage, it is unclear how these results will translate as much as they may be an evaluation of ‘quality’) financially. are easily reduced to an overall statistical average. The Times Higher also produced figures Hence, the Times Higher Education produced league giving overall cumulative figures for each institution tables for each discipline. The music league has Royal – Goldsmiths was ranked at 35 out of 132 institutions. Holloway at the top with 3.45, Goldsmiths sixteenth Again, considering the resources of the College, this with 2.9 and Napier at the bottom of the table (53rd) is impressive (although I think we are all aware of with 1.05. With a 1-4 scale it is a pretty crude way the imagination and commitment of staff and quality of differentiating between institutions. Indeed, of research going on in the College). six institutions had the same average as the Music Elsewhere in this edition of Research News you Department here, so the Times ranking was, as far as will find many examples of why the Department is I can tell, informed by an extra consideration of the judged to have 70 per cent of its activities as ‘world number of staff submitted (some departments did leading’ and ‘internat-ionally excellent’. not submit all their staff on the assumption that this might bring their grades down). We were certainly Happy New Year. led to believe that the number of staff submitted would be significant when the results will be used Keith Negus CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC time, we want the CCMC to provide an intellectual CULTURES and creative space within which art music, popular music and world musics can be given attention on Directors: Keith Negus, Professor of Musicology and their own terms (regardless of the ways they may or Roger Redgate, Reader in Composition might not connect with other musics, art forms and cultural practices). There is much music that is not The activities of the CCMC embrace all types necessarily innovating by crossing boundaries (and, of contemporary music making with the aim of indeed, the crossing of boundaries does not by itself fostering a broad and inclusive approach to research indicate that a performer or composer is particularly methodologies, interpretative positions, analytical interesting). techniques, creative strategies and performance We are in the process of setting up a range practices. The CCMC seeks to facilitate and of activities and events for 2009. These will be encourage dialogue between theorists, performers announced in due course, and will include: and composers/ songwriters/ producers. The work of the CCMC is particularly concerned with Composition, Culture, Politics: For series one, 2008-09, scholarship, composition and performance that the CCMC joined forces with the Centre for Russian challenges or moves across conventional boundaries Music in a series of talks and performances focused and categories. on the work of Russian/Post-Soviet composers, Following its launch in October 2005, and exploring the impact of political change from different under the directorship of Professor John Baily, the perspectives and cultural positions, highlighting CCMC developed an innovative research agenda by radically different aesthetic viewpoints. Through prioritising activities that emphasised movements the influence or rejection of mainstream European across the categories of western art music, world composition and popular music idioms, or via a music and popular music. Having become directors return to traditional religious and folk elements, of the Centre during the summer of 2008, we are now Post-Soviet music has forged its own, sometimes building upon the foundations established by John surprising, set of aesthetic controversies. This series and extending this agenda to think about how various of performances and talks features the work of musical styles and musicians bridge, blur and make composers from former Soviet countries, composers connections to other art forms and cultural practices. who remained and developed their work in Russia, For example we wish to encourage consideration of and Russian composers based in the UK. In 2009 the practices and ideas that bring together music and series two will be extended to cover a wider range of architecture; music and the moving image; music work focussing on composers based in the UK. and drama; music and dance; music and visual art; music and noise, to name just a few. At the same Music and Image Series One: This series will focus on the relationship between music and the visual image 2 in all its facets ranging from film and the moving Exploring the Popular Song: This programme will image, to painting and poetry as parallel forms of present a range of critical and creative approaches to notation and creative expression. The first event in the popular song, interrogating debates in musicology, the series will be a presentation and discussion with whilst encouraging dialogues between theory, song the solo and collaborative poet, sound/graphic artist writing and performance.