Open Academy

The Migration Game is an opera-in-progress that takes the form of an interactive game.
The audience are invited to follow Hope (mezzo soprano) to explore their dreams.  To do so they have to engage in the rules fo the Migration Game, solving puzzles in order to cross the Border.  Penalties are invoked when the rules are broken.
The music is modelled on gaming music.  It is partly improvised over a backbone score, in order to respond to players, provide clues, and set atmospheres.
Libretto by Hazel Gould.

How do musical leaders harness the individual voices within improvising ensembles to produce coherent works, whilst enabling creativity? What styles of leadership engender creative expression, and in doing so, enable musicians to identify personally with their contributions to a project? This action research project explores contrasting leadership styles as students and tutor work together to realise a "backbone" score for improvisation. In attempting to contrast directive vs facilitatory styles in my artistic leadership, I uncover an approach which plays between a focus on the whole ensemble - its performance and interpersonal dynamics, and a nuanced leadership of individuals within the ensemble, as I attempt to address with specific needs. The study reframes adopted leadership style as leadership attitude, suggests strategies for artistic leadership and evaluates the value of collaborative music and the role of leadership within it.

Audio recording of CD Vibin and Marblin. These five tracks were recorded during lockdown, generated through jams using video conferencing software. They explore a shared language between the music (composed and performed by Jackie Walduck) and Ebru Turkish paper marbling (created by Chloe Cooper), of layering, looping, transforming and disintegrating. Track list: 1. The Edge of Forming (3'45") 2. Fluorescent Koi.(4'46") 3. Dissolve Liquid Muck (11'00") 4. A Murky Plane Awaits (4'26") 5. Barrelhouse Moth (5'17"

Public Sound Art installation in 150 public-access bathrooms across Medway. The piece is presented on a series of 8 hand-hygiene posters, displaying QR codes. When these are scanned with a mobile device, they link the viewer to one of 15 music tracks - each lasting 20 seconds (the required time for soap to break down the coronavirus membrane). The music consists of songs and compositions thematically related to soap, bubbles, washing, sinks

Audio recording of a site-specific music performance at Thornham Magna, July 2017. The composition explored non-visual aspects of indigenous species found at the site, and was performed by Tactile Ensemble (Dir. Jackie Walduck) plus 40 musicians from the blind and partially sighted communities of Ipswich, Norwich and Lowestoft. The audience was led blindfold around the site to eight locations in which live music was performed, inspired by the sounds, movement and behaviours of: crickets, bees, bats, woodland birds, chaffinches, blue tits, coal tits and great tits, woodpeckers, cukoos, weasels and wrens. Tactile ensemble: Jackie Walduck (leader, composer) Adrian Lee (composer), Matt Wadsworth, James Risdon, Tom Jackson and Ben Markland. A spoken commentary is provided

The Migration Game is a game opera, which positions the audience as migrants, whose aim is to cross the border. In Part One, they meet the Spirit of Hope (mezzo soprano) who inspires them to seek new adventures - they then have to find their visas hidden around the set. Part Two is modelled on an Escape Room - aided by Hope (who provides clues) the audience have to solve musical puzzles to gain permission to cross the border. Anyone trying to cross without permission incurs a penalty to all players - lights are turned out; no verbal clues are given. When two players are left, they are told they can only cross the border if one of them shoots Hope - who then sings her dying aria

Miso Kitchen is a cross-sensory interactive performance presenting live Japanese paper marbling (suminigashi) in dialogue with improvised music. The artists watch and listen, adapting to one another in real time. They invite the audience to reflect on their own cross-sensory experience of eating miso soup whilst immersed in the swirling sights and sounds

Role-taking, the adoption of solo, accompanying or punctuating roles by a given part or parts may exist in any form of music. In Part 1, I have argued that the structure of free improvised pieces can be articulated in terms of player-functional or material-generative roles taken by ensemble members, and that these roles may, in turn, reflect the interpersonal dynamics of the group. The first four chapters uncover possible roles, and propose a methodology for mapping the structure of improvised pieces. Part 2 is a portfolio of backbone compositions - compositions written for one or two instruments with the intention of adding further parts in collaboration with other musicians. The compositions, including the process of their realisation, make use of the roles uncovered in Part 1, leading to musical structures suggestive of long-term or large-scale human interaction. The technique is expanded to encompass interaction with another art form - film. The final piece in the portfolio demo...

How do musical leaders harness the individual voices within improvising ensembles to produce coherent works, whilst enabling creativity? What styles of leadership engender creative expression, and in doing so, enable musicians to identify personally with their contributions to a project? This action research project explores contrasting leadership styles as students and tutor work together to realise a "backbone" score for improvisation. In attempting to contrast directive vs facilitatory styles in my artistic leadership, I uncover an approach which plays between a focus on the whole ensemble - its performance and interpersonal dynamics, and a nuanced leadership of individuals within the ensemble, as I attempt to address with specific needs. The study reframes adopted leadership style as leadership attitude, suggests strategies for artistic leadership and evaluates the value of collaborative music and the role of leadership within it.