Bringing the Noise
BRINGING THE NOISE Working at the cutting edge of improvisation, Henry McPherson (2008) has learned to meld together music and other media to create art that both challenges and engages.
Brought up in a household where his mother was a musician and music teacher, Henry was surrounded by music, playing and performing from an early age. Coming to Radley on a dual Music and Drama scholarship supported by the Foundation, he split much of his time between the Theatre and Music departments throughout his time here – and this combination is one that he has circled back to with the focus of his current PhD studies in Improvisation and Music & Dance. In his time at the college Henry was, unsurprisingly, very involved in many of the performances, singing in the choir, the chamber choir, Radley Clerkes, as well as doing lots of work for the Inter-Social Partsong competitions. As a pianist, he played in the orchestra, for theatre productions and also took part in the piano extravaganzas, and even in all his work in the experimental music community he has still not played in anything since that had quite so many pianos! From early in his time at Radley he would head across to use the music departments by himself in his spare time on Sundays to use the facilities there to compose his own original pieces. His interest in music and in particular composition only grew under the tutelage and guidance of the academic staff and visiting music teachers. Even now, over a dozen years later, he cannot stress enough how vital the VMTs are for musicians at Radley. Anne Martin-Davis for piano, Emma Taylor for singing and John Rockcliffe for Percussion were particularly key to Henry’s development. Together with the academic staff they helped him prepare for his application to study composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, arranging a mock-interview for him with an established composer in London. Needless to say despite composition being a rather niche pathway and not a common route out of school, the preparation and interview were a success and he was accepted to study there. Whilst studying composition at Glasgow, he found that he wanted to continue to perform and to get back on stage himself and it was the courses run by a visiting group of improvisors from Estonia, led by Anto Pett and Anne-Liis Poll, that introduced Henry to the opportunities available through this approach. Improvisation by its very nature is a practice of live composition and performance, in
Henry McPherson
Riding the knife edge of creativity in the middle of an improvisation session, Henry McPherson (2008), has to be open to opportunity – available to the possibilities as he finds himself right there in the midst of performance. But during his musical and creative journey to date, this willingness to grasp the opportunities presented has proven to be invaluable, helping him move into the world of experimental and improvisational music, harnessing the creative power of new media and navigating the pitfalls faced by creatives during the pandemic lockdowns.
Henry McPherson (right) and Sky Su: More Than One Thing research session, University of Huddersfield, 2020. fact it is also known as ‘instant composition’, and he was taken by this freer way of working as an alternative approach to traditional notated composition. Composition is still traditionally done in isolation – writing a score over months that is then passed on to an ensemble, who rehearse it and then perform it. It can be quite a lonely business but presented with the opportunity to collaborate more immediately in performance, rather than handing his work over to musicians at a distance, Henry dived in. Having done a small amount of collaborative work with creators from other disciplines such as film makers during his studies, he realised that combining improvisation with collaboration could be an important and productive approach for him. Starting to work with other groups and performers interested in spontaneous working in and around the Glasgow area, he realised he had found his community and immersed himself in it. Initially performing at an improvisation conference, and as part of an interdisciplinary improvising ensemble at the Conservatoire, it was there he met two other performers, Adam Hall and Inkeri Kallio. With a shared interested in working collaboratively to explore LGBTQ issues in a concert hall setting, they founded the performance group, Savage Parade. Their aim was to engage in socially engaged practice in a politicised sphere, examining issues that were relevant to their own LGBTQ community and the old radleian 2021
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