Immersion and Inclusive Music Performance

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The professional music world, specifically that of Western classical music, tends to be white and male, and most certainly: it does not include many disabled musicians.Even recently (March'17), Joshua Kosman (The San Francisco Chronicle's music critic) wrote 'Classical so white and male: Time is overdue for diversity', urging orchestras world-wide to become more inclusive and to address the lack of ethnic and gender diversity among performers. Kosman had examined schedules of orchestras and found that in the San Francisco Symphony's 2017-18 season with music by more than 50 composers only one female composer was featured. Kosman does not even talk of the need to include disabled composers or performers !It is timely to rethink attitudes towards inclusion and disability in Western Classical music performance.Our research team wants to understand the issues that disabled young musicians face, and by designing immersive music performance experiences for abled and disabled musicians we allow for an interchange of ideas and performance experiences. More research is needed to establish the best design criteria and methods for immersive environments that would enable, for example, a wheelchair bound pianist to experience being an 'able-bodied' performer. There are many talented young musicians who play instruments to a professional standard but, due to a disability, do not feel that a professional music career is an option for them. Disabilities (i.e. deafness, or hypochondroplasia, a form of short-limbed dwarfism) do not preclude people from becoming musicians. It does, however, mean that these musicians approach their instrument and learning of music in different ways (the deaf musician learning through body sensations; a musician with hypochondroplasia having to alter instrumental positioning). The profoundly deaf percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, female and disabled, is a rare exception in the world of classical music and a great inspiration for many aspiring, disabled young musicians.While other arts fields attempt to widen their activities (Northern Ireland's Replay Theatre: www.replaytheatreco.org/theadventurecollective is an outstanding example for making inclusive shows for people with profound and multiple learning difficulties), the music world tends to lag behind.Our research team will explore some issues that disabled young musicians face. At the start of the project our Drake Music partner, with over 25 years' experience in the area of music and disability, will identify 3 physically disabled musicians who want to collaborate with 3 able-bodied professional musicians, selected from Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble (HRSE), Belfast's only contemporary music ensemble. HRSE is known for their visionary programming, musical flexibility and inclusive ethos. For this proposal, we will not work with severe mental disability as this would require a larger scope and different support system.Our technical partner, immersive content designer BeAnotherLab, will develop, through participatory design methods, immersive technologies that allow disabled and able-bodied musicians to experience the reality of another. Throughout two intense workshop phases, disabled musicians experience work in a professional music setting, while able-bodied musicians experience what it means to be a disabled musician. By co-creating immersive experiences, through the use of for example Virtual Reality (VR), we put disabled musicians at the foreground, driving the development of the immersive experiences. Our aim is to allow for an exchange of disabled and able-bodied musicians and for the wider public to experience the social exclusions that disabled musicians face in our society. The final showcase will be a combination of a concert, an immersive experience installation, and a public debate about the research, design processes, prototypes, and about the potentials for future audiences and developments in the performing arts.