The Cramb Residency in Music
The Cramb Residency in Music (almost) annually invites a composer or musician(s) "pre-eminent in the field of Music", to the University of Glasgow for an inspiring combination of talks, workshops and performances.
Previous Cramb scholars have included Aaron Copland, Sir Peter Pears, George Lewis, Lydia Goehr, Susan McClary, and Thea Musgrave. The most recent in 2022 featured Scottish vocalist, Maggie Nicols.
The event's origins are in the Cramb Lecture in Music which was founded in 1911 by Miss Susannah Cramb of the Hermitage, Helensburgh and in 1947 provision was made for the lecture to become an annual event.
In more recent years the format has been expanded and visiting speakers have carried out a longer residency at the University. Residencies have incorporated public performance and seminars with Music students in addition to the traditional public lecture.
LATEST: The Cramb Residency, in conjunction with Nordic Music Days, for 2024 will feature LEMUR and takes place 8th - 9th May 2024.
Cramb Residency 2024
LEMUR
Wednesday 8th/ Thursday 9th May 2024
Norwegian quartet, LEMUR, return to Glasgow to lead this year's Cramb Residency, in conjunction with Nordic Music Days on 8th and 9th May 2024.
During their time at the University, they will perform in the University Chapel on Wednesday 8th May [free] from 6pm, and host an open discussion and site specific improvisation on Thursday 9th May [from 2pm in 14 University Gardens].
The concert will begin with an organ recital by Kevin Bowyer, which will culminate with a collaboration with LEMUR. There will be a short interval (with refreshments available) and LEMUR will perform at 7.30pm.
On Thursday 9th the members of LEMUR will be resident in the music building at 14 University Gardens. At 2pm, they will take part in a discussion of their processes and work, after which, they will set up in and around parts of the building for a special, collaborative improvisation, to which all are invited (and welcome to take part).
Admission to both events is free, all welcome.
Tickets can be reserved for the concert via Eventbrite [though it is also fine to turn up on the night]
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LEMUR, made up of Michael Francis Duch (bass), Hild Sofie Tafjord (horn), Lene Grenager (cello) and Bjornar Habbestad (flutes) have worked together in various combinations and with a range of collaborators (ranging from pianists John Tilbury and Sten Sandell to the Caput Ensemble and Icelandic Symphony Orchestra) since 2006.
Describing themselves as 'a sonic organism that transforms, blends and breaks the boundaries of their instruments and the art of quartet playing' they work across experimental and contemporary music, jazz and classical.
Their most recent album, 'Critical Bands', which was recorded with more than fifty musicians in various locations on Norway, Denmark and Iceland, was nominated for the Contemporary Classical category in the prestigious Spellemann Prisen, Norway's major music awards show.
The quartet have numerous connections with Glasgow, having performed with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) in 2014 and at the University Chapel in 2016. Just before the first COVID lockdown they played at the CCA with AMOR, one of the outcomes of which was the collaborative recording, AMOR/LEMUR ep, released on Night School Records in 2021.
They will return later in 2024 as part of Nordic Music Days - a festival presenting Nordic (and Scottish) contemporary music and sound between 30 October - 3 November.
List of Previous Cramb Residencies
vco
| Year | Speaker | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Maggie Nicols | vocalist, improviser |
| 2020 | David Toop | Emeritus Professor, London College of Communication |
| 2019 | Jeremy Dutcher | Composer, musicologist, performer and activist |
| 2018 | Marianne Wheeldon | Professor of Music Theory, University of Texas at Austin |
| 2017 | Allan Moore | Professor Emeritus, University of Surrey |
| 2016 | Susan McClary | Musicologist; Professor of Music, Case Western Reserve University |
| 2015 | Heiner Goebbels | Composer; Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen |
| 2014 | Peter Wiegold | Composer and conductor; Professor of Music, Brunel University |
| 2013 | Katherine Bergeron & Joseph Butch Rovan | Musicologist and Composer; Professors of Music, Brown University |
| 2012 | Anne Smith | Performer and musicologist; Schola Cantorum Basiliensis |
| 2007 | George Lewis | Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University |
| 2006 | Simon Frith | Tovey Professor of Music, University of|Edinburgh |
| 2005 | Lydia Goehr | Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University |
| 2004 | Roger Parker | University of Cambridge |
| 2002 | Leo Treitler | Emeritus Professor of Music, the Graduate School, CUNY |
| 2001 | Anthony Newcomb | Musicologist; Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2000 | Richard Taruskin | Musicologist; Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2000 | Laszlo Somfai | Musicologist, Bartok Institute, Budapest |
| 1997 | Jane Glover | Conductor |
| 1994 | Hugh J. Macdonald | Musicologist; Professor of Music, Washington University, St Louis |
| 1990 | Joan Rimmer | Musician |
| 1989 | David Charlton | Lecturer in Music, Royal Holloway, University of London |
| 1989 | Yuri Kholopov | Moscow Conservatoire |
| 1988 | Hans Tischler | Emeritus Professor of Musicology, University of Indiana |
| 1988 | Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE | Composer and conductor |
| 1987 | Peter Branscombe | Author |
| 1987 | Neil FI Sorrell | Senior Lecturer, University of York; co-founder, English Gamelan Orchestra |
| 1986 | Alena Němcová | Music Information Centre of the Czech Music Fund |
| 1985 | Wilfred H. Mellers, OBE | Professor of Music, University of York |
| 1979 | H. Robbins Landon | Author and music historian |
| 1977 | Thomas Jeffrey Hemsley | Opera and concert singer |
| 1977 | Thea Musgrave | Composer |
| 1976 | Luciano Berio | Composer |
| 1975 | Ivor Keys, FRCO | Professor of Music, University of Birmingham |
| 1973 | Denis Matthews, FRAM | Professor of Music, University of Newcastle upon Tyne |
| 1972 | Witold Lutoslawski | Composer |
| 1971 | Iain Ellis Hamilton | Professor of Music, Duke University |
| 1970 | Cedric Thorpe Davie, OBE, FRACM | Reader in Music, University of St Andrews |
| 1969 | Peter Angus Evans, FRCO | Professor of Music, University of Southampton |
| 1968 | Sir Jack Westrup | Heather Professor of Music, University of Oxford |
| 1967 | Hugh Tracey | Director, International Library of African Music |
| 1966 | Wilfrid H. Mellers | Professor of Music, University of York |
| 1965 | William Mann | Music Critic of “The Times” |
| 1964 | Keith Falkner, FRCM | Director of the Royal College of Music |
| 1963 | Henry McLeod Havergal | Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music |
| 1962 | Aaron Copland | Composer, conductor |
| 1961 | Peter Pears, CBE | |
| 1960 | Sir Anthony Lewis | Musicologist, conductor and composer; Professor of Music, University of Birmingham |
| 1959 | Thurston Dart | Musicologist, conductor and performer; Lecturer in Music, University of Cambridge |
| 1958 | Alan Douglas, MIRE, MAIEE | |
| 1957 | Erik Chisholm, DMus, FRCO | Composer, pianist, conductor; Professor at the University of Cape Town |
| 1956 | Sydney Newman | Composer and conductor; Reid Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh |
| 1955 | Gordon Jacob, FRCM, HonRAM | Composer and music editor; Professor at the RCM |
| 1954 | Herbert Kennedy Andrews | Composer and Organist; Lecturer in Music at Oxford and the RCM |
| 1953 | Herbert Wiseman | Scottish Music Director, BBC |
| 1952 | Frank Howes | Music Critic of The Times |
| 1951 | Ivor Benjamin Hugh James, FRCM | Professor in the Royal College of Music, London |
| 1951 | Frederick William Rimmer | Senior Lecturer in Music, Homerton College, Cambridge |
| 1950 | Sir Steuart Wilson | Singer; Director of the Arts Council of Great Britain; Director of Music for the BBC |
| 1949 | Sir George Dyson | Composer; Professor of composition, RCM; Master of Music, Winchester College |
| 1948 | Sir Thomas Armstrong | Conductor, Composer, and Organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford |
| 1947 | Ronald Ernest Woodham | Musicologist |
| 1947 | Frank Howes | Music Critic of The Times; President of the RMA |
| 1946 | Charles Henry Phillip | |
| 1939 | Sir Hugh Percy Allen | Conductor and Musicologist; Professor of Music, Oxford University; Director, RCM |
| 1937 | Edmund Horace Fellowes | Musicologist and editor of early music; Canon of St George’s Chapel, Windsor |
| 1935 | Sir Donald Francis Tovey, FRSE | Reid Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh |
| 1934 | Michel D Calvocoressi | Critic, Musicologist, and translator; scholar of Russian music |
| 1933 | Henry George Farmer | Musicologist and Arabist |
| 1931 | William Gillies Whittaker | Composer, Conductor and Musicologist; Principal, RSAMD, and Gardiner Professor, University of Glasgow |
| 1928 | Sir George Dyson | Composer; Professor of composition, RCM; Master of Music, Winchester College |
| 1927 | Henry Cope Colles | Chief music critic, The Times; editor, Grove's Dictionary, 3rd and 4th editions |
| 1926 | Gustav Holst | Composer; Director of Music, Morley College |
| 1925 | Sir Donald Francis Tovey, FRSE | Reid Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh |
| 1924 | Sir Henry Walford Davies | Gresham Professor of Music, University of London |
| 1923 | Sir Percy Carter Buck | Organist and Composer; Director of Music, Harrow School |