Collaborative Project - MUS00091M

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  • Department: Music
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module summary

Working with other artists is a fundamental part of the creative industries. This module offers a framework through which you can develop meaningful collaborations with other students in the school and critically reflect on these.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

This module aims to facilitate collaboration between MA students within and across various disciplines within the School of Arts and Creative Technologies. Collaboration is supported with students on the following programmes:

MA Music Performance (or other MA Music students who meet the required performance standards)

MA Theatre Making

MA Music: Composition*

PhD in Music Composition*

BA Music (those taking the recital option)*

The module offers an opportunity for bold experimentation, with a focus on creative process and interdisciplinary collaboration. The nature of the collaboration will depend on the individuals involved and the work they want to explore, but broadly covers the creation and presentation of new work: participating in the development of a new piece or pieces of music or theatre and performing as a collaborative artist in a final recital or performance. In all cases your contribution will support both your own and your peers’ assessed work, so absolute commitment and professionalism is required once the collaboration is agreed.

*NB: BA Music, MA and PhD Composition students participate in this module as collaborators but their work is assessed separately.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module you should be able to:

  1. Collaborate effectively with other artists on a shared creative goal

  2. Support and respond to another artist’s creative vision with your own ideas

  3. Empathise with the challenges faced by other creative disciplines

  4. Demonstrate flexibility in your approach to performance as required by its interaction with another discipline

  5. Understand the potential of taking creative risks and cultivate your ambition within a creative context

Module content

The format of this module will depend on the parameters of the collaboration. A session in Semester 1 will be held to facilitate the formation of collaborative partnerships. After this collaboration proposals and agreements will be submitted for approval to the module leader. As a guide, collaborative teams should expect to meet as a group every week during Semester 2 and to produce material independently for these sessions, leading to the public presentation of new work at the end of the semester. To support the process there will be class sessions on collaborative practices and reflective writing. Each group will have a staff mentor they may consult for advice.

For Theatre Making Students, this is a core module. For Music students, this module is only open for selection by those who have formed an approved partnership after the Semester 1 session - the availability of collaborative partners to pursue this module cannot be guaranteed.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 50.0
Essay/coursework 50.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

There are two assessment tasks:

  • A performance of your newly-created piece, which will take place during the revision/assessment weeks (50%)
  • A reflective essay of no more than 1500 words in which you outline a) the process by which you collaborated – how often you met, how you organised your sessions, how things changed through the semester; b) the challenges you encountered as part of the collaboration, and how you resolved them; c) the new creative directions this collaboration has offered you. (50%)

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 50.0
Essay/coursework 50.0

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.

Indicative reading

Born, Georgina. ‘For a Relational Musicology: Music and Interdisciplinarity, Beyond the Practice Turn.’ Journal of the Royal Musical Association 135/2 (2010): 205-243.

Britton, J. (2013) Encountering Ensemble, London: Bloomsbury.

John-Steiner, Vera. Creative Collaboration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Radosavljevic, D. (2013) The Contemporary Ensemble, London: Routledge.

Segal, S. (2016) Writing in Collaborative Theatre-Making, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Syssoyeva, K.M. and Proudfit, S. (eds.) (2013) Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Critical Reflection

Bassot, Barbara. The Reflective Journal. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective practice: writing and professional development, 4th ed. London: Sage, 2014.

Boud, David, Rosemary Keogh and David Walker. Reflection: Turning experience into learning. London: Kogan Page, 2013.

Driscoll, John. Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reflective Approach for Healthcare Professionals, 2nd ed. London: Bailliere Tindall, 2006.

Gibbs, Graham. Learning by Doing, A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford: Oxford Brookes University, 1988.

Kolb, David. Experiential Learning: Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984.

Composer-performer collaborations / distributed creativity in contemporary music:

Bellamy, Mary. ‘Developing instrumental sound resources through collaborative compositional practice.’ Search: Journal for New Music and Culture 10 (2013). http://www.searchnewmusic.org/index10.html

Clarke, Eric, Mark Doffman, and Liza Lim. ‘Distributed Creativity and Ecological Dynamics: A Case Study of Liza Lim’s ‘Tongue of The Invisible.’ Music and Letters, 94/4 (2013): 628-663.

Clarke, Eric F. and Mark Doffman, ed. Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Hayden, Sam and Luke Windsor. ‘Collaboration and the Composer: Case Studies from the End of the 20th Century.’ Tempo 61 (2007): 28–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4500495

Heyde, Neil and Fabrice Fitch. ‘Ricercar – The Collaborative Process as Invention.’ Twentieth-Century Music 4/1 (2007): 71-95.

Östersjö, Stefan. SHUT UP 'N' PLAY! Negotiating the Musical Work. Malmö: Malmö Academy of Music/ Lund University, 2008.

Redhead, Lauren, and Richard Glover, ed. Collaborative and Distributed Processes in Contemporary Music-Making. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2018.

Roe, Paul. A Phenomenology of Collaboration in Contemporary Performance and Composition. PhD Thesis, University of York (2007). http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9941/3/485137.pdf

Vol. 36 no. 6 of the journal Contemporary Music Review (available electronically via the library) is entitled ‘“Collaboration” in Contemporary Music’.