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

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YearSpeaker 
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