Caitlin Rowley is currently working on her practice-based PhD in interdisciplinary composition at Bath Spa University under the supervision of Prof. James Saunders and Dr Robert Luzar. The interim title of her research project is ‘Studio/Stage: Questioning the division of ‘public’ and ‘private’ through interdisciplinary composition’. Her work investigates how the normally private, unseen spaces and activity of the composer’s studio and notebooks may become visible through their use as content in compositions.
She is an active member of Bath Spa University’s Open Scores Lab research group, and has collaborated several times with her Bastard Assignments colleague Josh Spear (Norwegian Academy of Music) on conference presentations and publications relating to creative collaboration and DIY events, most recently ‘Together/Not Together: A conversation about networked collaborative processes’, presented at Music and/as Process’s 2021 conference.
Caitlin is also Research Administrator and Events Co-ordinator for the Cyborg Soloists research project, directed by Dr Zubin Kanga and based at Royal Holloway, University of London, and has worked as a Research Assistant on various projects at Bath Spa University since 2020, including documentation strategy for object theatre project Objects Without Borders, and working on impact case studies for the 2021 REF.
Information on her Masters’ research projects – At the Borders of Music, Art and Text: Exploring an interdisciplinary approach to composition (2013-14, supervised by Dr Sam Hayden) and A Sketchbook of Mushrooms: Visual art as a tool for notated composition (2012-13, supervised by Dr Dominic Murcott) – can be found elsewhere on this site, and her early work on Erik Satie is available online as Erik Satie’s Crystal Ball.
Research interests
Caitlin’s research interests include:
- private experiences (composition practice, memory, the private experience of performing)
- generative creative spaces (studio/notebooks)
- virtuality
- composer presence
- the score as object (art/sonic/physical object)
- the everyday
- fear as a creative tool
- interdisciplinary composition/The New Discipline
- the music of Erik Satie
Publications and conference papers
- View a full list of Caitlin’s publications and conference papers elsewhere on this site
- She writes informally (and somewhat erratically!) about her areas of interest and work in progress on this website’s blog
Some notable examples of Caitlin’s publications and presentations include:
Presentation at 9th Music and/as Process Conference: Music and Interdisciplinary Practice, Online, 17 September 2022.
A response to Matthew Sergeant and James Saunders’ ‘What do composers do all day?’ (‘translated as ‘Was machen Komponistinnen den ganzen Tag?’), published in MusikTexte 173 (May 2022).
With Josh Spear. Video presentation at the 8th Music and/as Process Conference: Networked Collaborative Processes 2021, Online, 25 June 2021.
Presentation at Experience::Music::Experiment seminar on Pragmatism and Artistic Research at Orpheus Instituut, Ghent, 14 February 2020.
With Josh Spear. Presentation at Collaborations Are More Refreshing Than New Socks conference at Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, 4 December 2019.
Peer-reviewed article published on the Question journal blog, 9 January 2018.
Read on the Question website »
Edited by Caitlin Rowley and published by the Australian Music Centre and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (1998).
“This book is an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to find their way across Australia’s complex musical landscape. The journey starts out with concepts behind traditional Aboriginal music, popular, jazz, classical and folk musics, and the music of ‘new traditions’, where traditional immigrant cultures meet and meld to create something quite new.”
Purchase online from the Australian Music Centre
The Composer Speaks II: Proceedings of the Australian New Music Conference 1990Edited by Graeme Skinner and Caitlin Rowley
Reissued as an ebook from the Australian Music Centre