RNCM Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music

Seeing the Unseeable | A special evening of public discussion exploring the creative process in music and maths

Professor Emily Howard (Director of PRiSM) brings together speakers from mathematical, engineering, performance and composition backgrounds to explore how creativity connects music and mathematics in new and surprising ways.

Panellists:
(Chair) Professor Rachel Bearon, Executive Dean of King's Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences
Professor Emily Howard, Professor in Composition and Head of Artistic Research, RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music
Professor Elaine Chew, Professor of Engineering, King’s College London
Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford
Dr Lauren Redhead, Head of School for Music, English and Theatre, Goldsmiths, University of London

📅 Monday 24 November 2025
🕖 7–8:30pm GMT
📍 Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, King’s College London
🎟️ Free admission — registration required
🔗 https://marc.kcl.ac.uk/2025/10/seeing-the-unseeable-exploring-the-creative-process-in-music-and-maths/

🎤OPERA WORLD PREMIERE 📢
⏱️ 7pm, Tuesday 24 June
📍 Theatre RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music

"Dangerous Matter" - an urgent and powerful reflection on the role of memory in medicine & human progress, inspired by the story and writing of Lady Mary Montagu Wortley.

Zakiya Leeming - composer & librettist
Sam Redway Wells - director, dramaturg & librettist

Melvin Tay - conductor
Rosie Middleton - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Ruth Harley - Sarah Chiswell / Multi-role
Jasmine Higgs - Dutchess of Marborough / Multi-role
Ankur Dang - Princess Caroline / Multi-role
Yu Chinen - Inoculator/ Multi-role
Oscar Bowen-Hill - Dr Charles Maitland / Multi-role

🎟️ https://www.rncm.ac.uk/performance/dangerous-matter-a-new-opera-on-medicine-memory-and-innovation/

"Dangerous Matter" is a part of the "Thanks for the Memories" project - a collaboration between Paul Klenerman, Professor of Immunology at Oxford University, and composer Zakiya Leeming - supported by the Wellcome Trust.

🎺 Coming up tomorrow | Wednesday 11 June 2025 🎤🎼🎹

Simon Knighton curates | Sound Sculptures: A Dynamic Fusion of Installation and Live Performance

🖲 International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester
⏱ 20:00-21:00

The concert will feature the second performance of Knighton's 'Sound Sculpture No. 8', a piece originally commissioned by Nonclassical and premiered at the Southbank Centre in 2024. Combining a string trio, installation and electronics, this work explores new tuning systems and spatial harmony through chimes, micro-tuned xylophone bars, live instruments, and synthesizers, creating an evolving sound world that immerses audiences in a multi-sensory experience.

The event will also feature 'Missing Pieces' by Gemma Bass, a collection of 5 compositions, in which key elements of the music are left to chance or choice and put into the hands of the performers. This opens up infinite opportunities for involvement and interpretation, from deep intimacy and vulnerability to chaos and anarchy.

Rounding off the programme will be 'Milton' by Emmy Lambert, 'Figure 7' by Sidney Patrick, and a new work by Gloria Xia showcasing the incredible creativity of the RNCM community.

Performers:

House of Bedlam: Kathryn Williams (Flute), Carl Raven (Saxophone)
Gemma Bass (Violin)
Lucy Nolan (Viola)
Peggy Nolan (Cello)

Tickets:
🔗 https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/simonknighton/sound-sculptures-a-dynamic-fusion-of-installation-and-live-performance/e-xzxrpm

This concert supports the release of Simon Knighton’s debut album, Sound Sculptures, Dynamical Systems, Natural Environments, which was released last year through Nonclassical: https://www.nonclassical.co.uk/engage-1/sound-sculptures-simon-knighton

Artwork by Fiona Brehony

📢 New PRiSM Blog | 'Climate Music' 📢

Four years on since co-leading the RNCM PRiSM 'Changing Music in a Changing Climate' collaboration, innovative pianist-composer Sarah Nicolls reflects on a series of musical activist works leading up to her most recent composition, 'Dreams in Flux' (2024).

She shares with us how her engagement with climate change has connected deeply with her being an artist, a parent, as well as recently becoming a farmer in rural Gloucestershire.

Read the blog 👇

🔗 https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-blog/climate-music/

📢 PRiSM Summer 2025 News & Upcoming Events 📢

🔗 https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-news-and-events/rncm-prism-upcoming-events-in-summer-2025/

▶️ Simon Knighton & the House of Bedlam present: "Sound Sculptures: A Concert Merging Installation and Live Performance” | The International Anthony Burgess Foundation | Manchester | 8pm, 11 June 2025

🔗 https://www.anthonyburgess.org/event/concert-sound-sculptures/

▶️ Dangerous Matter | New opera in one act by Zakiya Leeming, with a libretto by Sam Redway and Leeming, inspired by the science of immunology and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who advocated for the Turkish practice of inoculation in C18th England | RNCM Theatre | 7pm, 24 June

🔗 https://www.rncm.ac.uk/performance/dangerous-matter-a-new-opera-on-medicine-memory-and-innovation/

▶️ Germaine Kruip: A Possibility | New artwork for the theatre by Dutch artist Germaine Kruip, feat. new compositions by composers Emily Howard and Hahn Rowe | Part of Manchester International Festival 2025 | RNCM, 17-20 July

🔗 https://factoryinternational.org/whats-on/germaine-kruip-a-possibility/

RNCM PRiSM | Upcoming Events in Summer 2025 - Royal Northern College of Music Upcoming events and performances in Summer 2025, featuring new works by PRiSM researchers.

🔽 RNCM PRiSM February 2025 News 🔽

📢 RNCM appoints two Honorary Researchers in Association with PRiSM | Dr Hongshuo Fan and Professor David De Roure

📢 Emily Howard: The Anvil | Premiere Nominee | 2025 BBC Music Magazine Awards | Public voting opens until 28 February

📢 Coming Up for Air in [LOCATION] | European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (EPARM) Conference | Tallinn, Estonia

Full story:
🔗

RNCM PRiSM | February News 2025 - Royal Northern College of Music Recent RNCM honorary appointments in association with PRiSM, award nominations, and upcoming international conference featuring PRiSM researchers.

Emily Howard's portrait album 'The Anvil', released on Delphian Records in 2023, has recently been shortlisted in the Premiere category of the 2025 BBC Music Magazine Awards.

Written in 2019, The Anvil is described as ‘a thrillingly immersive and deeply emotional commemoration of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre’. It features the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, and The Hallé Choir, and was supported by the RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music through the Research England E3 Expanding Excellence in England Grant.

The BBC Music Magazine Awards are decided by public vote, so please take a minute to support Emily if you can. Voting is done via the BBC Music Award’s website and is open until 28 February:

https://www.rncm.ac.uk/news/vote-for-professor-emily-howard-to-win-bbc-music-magazine-premiere-award/

https://www.classical-music.com/awards/2025-awards/bbc-music-magazine-premiere-award-2025

Vote for Professor Emily Howard in this year's BBC Music Magazine Awards - Royal Northern College of Music Congratulations to Professor Emily Howard on being shortlisted in the Premiere category of the 2025 BBC Music Magazine […]

PRiSM are delighted to welcome Dr Kathryn Williams - Flutist to undertake her new post-doctoral project at RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music.

The project, Coming up for Air in Rossendale, will explore the interplay between indoor air quality, accessible technology & musicians’ health & wellbeing through creative musical practice & a collaboration with PRiSM researcher Dr Bofan Ma.

The initial six-month phase of the work will culminate in a performance-led, multi-sensory installation at the Horse and Bamboo Theatre in Rossendale, Lancashire. Incorporating the state-of-the-art indoor air quality monitoring system installed in their main performance space, developed by award-winning technology solutions provider IoT Horizon Ltd, the artwork will be premiered at the theatre's annual Waterfoot Wakes Festival, 12-21 July 2024.

Full story:
🔗https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-news-and-events/dr-kathryn-williams-prism-post-doctoral-research-associate-appointed/

📢New PRiSM Blog | Norrisette and Not-Norrisette

Anna Appleby (PRiSM Doctoral Researcher 2019-2024) discusses her work & collaboration with Artificial Intelligence , both as a composer of contemporary classical music & as her electronic pop music alter-ego, Norrisette 👇

🔗https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-blog/norrisette-and-not-norrisette/

PRiSM recently hosted two public lectures at the RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music, led by Professor Georgina Born & her team at the "Music & AI: Building Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (MusAI)" Research Program, one as part of a seminar series organised in conjunction with The Alan Turing Institute.

Full story:
https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-news-and-events/prism-and-musai-building-critical-interdisciplinary-studies/

New PRiSM Blog | Sounds from the Funhouse Machine: AI in Composition

RNCM PRiSM Artist and Producer in Residence Dr Zakiya Leeming traces along an exploratory journey of four works created using PRiSM SampleRNN - PRiSM's flagship neural audio synthesis software tool, including collaborations with Riot Ensemble and the ML4M Working Group associated with NOVARS Research Centre The University of Manchester.

Sounds from the Funhouse Machine: AI in Composition - Royal Northern College of Music RNCM PRiSM Artist & Producer in Residence Zakiya Leeming traces along a 4-work journey of exploring PRiSM SampleRNN and audio neural synthesis.

Prototype Music | Saxophone & PRiSM Musical Gesture Recogniser (MGR) | By Robert Laidlow

"Earlier in 2023, PRiSM and the RNCM School of Composition presented two exciting and experimental new works for saxophone and electronics, joining forces with guest saxophonist David Zucchi to showcase new musical gesture recognition technology that PRiSM has been working on (featuring software development from PRiSM Research Software Engineer Dr Hongshuo Fan).

Led by Dr Robert Laidlow & Professor David De Roure, the project extrapolates from an earlier PRiSM collaboration with Professor George Lewis (Columbia University), exploring possibilities of the ‘machine’ listening to live musicians and thus determining when it will be playing specific musical ideas.

In this PRiSM blog, Laidlow reflects upon his experience leading on the project and working alongside two RNCM student composers, Songhao Yao and Eve Vickers, as well as how working with this emerging technology has opened up new avenues for future research and creative practices."

Read the Blog:
https://www.rncm.ac.uk/research/research-activity/research-centres-rncm/prism/prism-blog/prototype-music-saxophone-prism-musical-gesture-recogniser-mgr/