Book launch: Theatre Music and Sound at the RSC

Show notes

Guest Prof Dr Millie Taylor holds the Van den Ende Chair of the Musical at the University of Amsterdam. For almost 20 years she toured Britain and Europe as a freelance musical director in Musical theatre. I constantly use her and Dominic Symonds book Studying Musical Theatre (2014) in my course. More recently she has published Theatre Music and Sound at the RSC: Macbeth to Matilda (2018). https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/t/a/m.taylor2/m.taylor.html?cb

References Taylor, Millie (2018), Theatre Music and Sound at the RSC. Macbeth to Matilda, London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-95222-2

Larrue, Jean-Marc (2011), ‘Sound Reproduction Techniques in Theatre: a Case of Mediatic Resistance’, in: Kendrick, Lynne / Roesner, David (eds.), Theatre Noise. The Sound of Performance, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 14-22. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-3440-7

Paul Clark: »I try to offer a parallel world, which will sometimes collide with the journey of the drama«, in: Roesner, David (2019), Theatermusik. Analysen und Gespräche, Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 316–334. https://www.theaterderzeit.de/buch/theatermusik/ Radosavljević, Duška and Pitrolo, Flora. (2021). "auralia.space. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Post-Verbatim, Amplified Storytelling and Gig Theatre in the Digital Age." At: https://www.auralia.space.

Notes: Roberto Gerhard was an important and well-respected contemporary composer in the 1950s and 60s who was already using electronics at that time, and who wrote the music for Macbeth 1962. Delia Derbyshire provided the sound materials alongside Guy Woolfenden's score for Macbeth in 1967. Craig Armstrong composed the score for the 2011 production of Macbeth with three cellos, that brought a totally unexpected minimalist soundworld to the piece. Adrian Lee, with percussionist Joji Hirota created the score for Macbeth 1999 that Millie talks about in relation to the change in annotation as well as sound. Another important person in changing the sound world, using electronic instruments, and devising graphic writing methods was Ilona Sekacz, whose scores begin from a conceptual approach to dramaturgy. Stephen Oliver was a very prolific composer for the company, while music by popular composers included: Duke Ellington (Timon of Athens, 1999), Cole Porter and George Gershwin (in a score for Two Gentlemen of Verona compiled by Guy Woolfenden), and more recently Laura Marling wrote the music for As You Like It in 2013. The interaction between sound design and music is most notable in the work of Ben and Max Ringham, brothers who work together or individually as sound designers and composers, drawing those two roles together.