Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival 2014

Hello,

A quick update to let you know what is going on down here.

Next weekend sees the 10th annual Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival here in Devon. I was commissioned by the organisers, Peninsula Arts, to develop a commission as part of a new exhibition by Peter Randall-Page, which opened this weekend, 1st February, and closes at the end of the month. There will be two dedicated performances of the piece as part of the contemporary music festival. The composition, a multi-channel installation titled Concord for Five Elements, uses some of the software I developed as part of my PhD at the IoSR, University of Surrey, in 2010.

Also at the festival, Eduardo Miranda will be launching his new book, "Thinking Music", which is accompanied by an Audio CD of his "Sound to Sea", which I mixed and mastered from a 64-track live recording made at the Sherwell Church in September 2012. I've just picked up my copy and it is a fascinating read. All the details of the full festival programme can be viewed online at www.pacmf.co.uk. There is a short promo video of my piece up on youtube now.

As part of the Randall-Page exhibition, I will be joining Peter and Dr Michael Verde to give a talk for the Cognition Institute at Plymouth University on February 27th, discussing how our emotions are both affected by and have a profound effect upon our experiences of art, music and memory. If you are in the area, admission is free.

Finally, last but not least I am delighted to say that I have an article coming up in an exciting, brand new journal, the Journal of Metal Music Studies (published by Intellect Journals). The first issue won't be published until 2015, but the full press release accompanying the journal (and

my article, which uses timbral analysis techniques to investigate production trends over the last two decades) is here. Professor Karl Spracklen, the editor, kindly mentions my paper in the press release as follows:

"The first issue includes an article by Duncan Williams ‘Tracking timbral changes in metal productions from 1990-2013’ which explores the evolution in sonic characteristics that is partially rooted in music technology developments and associated production techniques that have given rise to a set of identifiably distinct ‘metal’ timbres. This is the first paper we have accepted for Metal Music Studies. Duncan Williams has really got the journal off to a high-quality start, so well done to him, and lets see what other papers are accepted over the next six months” – The journal provides an intellectual hub for the International Society of Metal Music Studies and the call for papers can be viewed here.

That's it for now. Thanks for visiting,

Duncan