NAIP Final Reflective Report - Rob Thorpe - A Guest in Nature

Abstract

My artistic research and Professional Integration Project focused on composing for voices. I aimed to explore how accessible choir music could combine with my other influences and background in rhythmic music, and use that confluence to articulate contemporary secular themes of nature, the climate crisis and environmental pressures. The report starts by examining my motivations behind the project’s themes of nature, voices and cross-genre performance approaches, as well as my previous artistic projects. The report then describes the artistic process and creative reasoning for each aspect of the final project with honest discussion of the practical pressures of the production process and how these combined to produce the final work.I openly examine how my initial objectives were met with varying degrees of success, particularly how I failed in the aim of engaging amateur singers with contemporary repertoire, and the constructive lessons that can be taken away from the project regarding collaboration in large groups and time-lining work. I also reflect on the musical language used and how this was received and interpreted by my musical collaborators.