What's On

Our series of Research Forums gives audiences the opportunity to hear presentations from academics, performers and composers, and to engage in the exchange of ideas that follows. Talks usually last about an hour, including a Q&A session. You can join us in person or watch many of the sessions livestreamed from the RNCM YouTube channel.

BELOW GROUND is a collaborative interdisciplinary project led by Nina Whiteman that brings people together to explore ideas of the subterranean. Artists across disciplines meet geographers, ecologists and horticulturalists and create multimedia, multisensory performances and ‘sonic gardening’ workshops in the community.

In this Research Forum Nina will evaluate the collaborative models, multimedia approaches, and use of technology in the project to date, sharing examples from a series of BELOW GROUND performances. There will also be discussion of how the project engages with environmental concerns, tying in with the RNCM’s The Future is Green theme.
The presentation will conclude with a performance of Earthed (piano, electronics, multimedia; 11 minutes) featuring Adam Swayne (piano) and Nina Whiteman (live electronics).

Nina Whiteman is a composer, multimedia artist and vocalist based in Manchester, UK. In 2022-24, projects have focussed on technology’s interaction with the natural environment and ecological concerns, leading to a cycle of multimedia works exploring AI and machine learning titled The Cybird Trilogy (supported by the Cyborg Soloists project at Royal Holloway and by PRiSM at the RNCM). During 2023, Nina has designed and led the interdisciplinary collaborative project BELOW GROUND, developing multimedia multisensory responses to notions of the subterranean (funded by Arts Council England). Nina lectures at the RNCM and is Reader in Composition and Composition Lead at Royal Holloway (University of London). She is also co-Artistic Director of the new music ensemble Trio Atem and of Manchester Contemporary Youth Opera, an organisation she co-founded to enable young and emerging artists to create new opera.

Adam Swayne is Deputy Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music. A versatile and eclectic musician, Adam studied at the University of Manchester and the RNCM before completing his doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar at Northwestern University in the U.S.A. Through regular concert appearances, pioneering research and new compositions, he creates and presents unfamiliar music for all kinds of people. He has been described by The Times as ‘a pianist of formidable technique and high intelligence’. His first recital CD ‘(speak to me): new music new politics’ received outstanding reviews and was the only recording nominated in two categories at the 2019 Opus Klassik awards.

Free admission, no ticket required.

This event will end at approximately 5.45pm.