Speaks: with Tansy Davies

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Free to attend, register via this online form. After 4pm on the day of the event, please email Danny at events@music.ox.ac.uk for the YouTube link.

Please note this talk will also take place in person, at the JdP Building, St Hilda's College. No registration required for in-person attendance.

'Lost Science'

Could the ancient art of composing with music notation somehow connect the human mind to an ancient version of itself? And - as a multidimensional language - could such a modality be compared to hieroglyphics?

I'd like to examine the idea of how music notation - like a code - could be seen as belonging to an earlier version of 'human', as a technology, and how that code might contain clues to rediscovering lost pieces of human potential.

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Tansy Davies (b. 1973) characterises the role of the solo saxophone in her 2004 work Iris as that of 'a shaman, or one who walks between worlds'. In doing so she also describes herself - a musician whose boundary-breaking curiosity makes her a truly distinctive voice. With a background as a horn player, electric guitarist and vocalist, Davies studied composition with Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and with Simon Holt at Royal Holloway. The recipient of a 2009 Paul Hamlyn Award, Davies has written works for numerous world-class orchestras, including Tilting (2005) for the London Symphony Orchestra and Wild Card, premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2010 Proms. Her music has been championed internationally by ensembles including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orkest de Ereprijs, Ensemble intercontemporain, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and The Israel Contemporary Players, and at festivals including MaerzMusik, Leeds Lieder, Ultima, Présences, and Warsaw Autumn.

Davies has taught at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and was Associate Professor of Composition at the Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana. Recent projects include Plumes (2019) for Royal Northern Sinfonia and Soul Canoe for Asko|Schönberg - the latter commissioned as part of a season-long residency at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in 2018/19. In 2022 Davies composed Stone Codes for percussionist Konstantyn Napolov and the Orkest de Ereprijs for November Music, which received its Polish premiere at Warsaw Autumn in September 2024. In 2024 Asko|Schönberg premiered Canopies of Liquid Light, a 24-minute work scored for the same forces as Steve Reich's City Life. 2024 also saw the premiere of The Ice Core Sample Says at Leeds Lieder, a new setting of her longtime collaborator Nick Drake for Ema Nikolovska and Joseph Middleton.

Image credit: Zara Carpenter