Showcase 09 04

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/showcase-09-04 1/8

SHO WCA SEOpen College o the Arts

2009 No. 4

Who’s who at OCA

Richard Robbins

obituary 2

OCA music students

OCA Music

competition 4 & 5

Tutor: Patric Standord- Music course author

6 & 7

Inside

Student profile: Joan Barker - page 3

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


2

Showcaseis published by the Open College o

the Arts.

Open College of the Arts

The Michael Young Arts Centre,Redbrook Business Park

Wilthorpe Road, Barnsley S75 1JN

Telephone: 01226 730495

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.oca-uk.com

Registered charity no: 327446

Company limited by guarantee no:

2125674

OCA welcomes contributions to

Showcase but reserves the right

to edit materials at its discretion. Views and opinions expressed in

Showcase are not necessarily those

o OCA, nor does the inclusion o

an item, insert or advertisement

constitute a recommendation.

To amend your contact details or to

give eedback – please contact Dee

Whitmore, Marketing and Events,

on 01226 704364 or

email: [email protected]

Debbie Hodson

Debbie joined the OCA on a temporary

contract in 1993, packing the Guide to

Courses. 16 years later she is an invaluable

member o the Academic services/ Tutor

services.

Debbie’s interests include cross-stitching,

reading and walking. She is at the

moment doing an AAT Foundation course

at Barnsley College.

Adele Fitzpatrick

Adele joined

OCA in October

2003 as

the nance

assistant. Her

interests in all

things technical

led her to

u n d e r t a k e

the CCNA (Cisco Certied Network

Associate) course and as a result she is

now responsible or the IT Network.

She is also an OCA student on

Photography 1: Art of Photography.

Adele is married with 2 children and

enjoys cycling, walking, playing the violin

and Photography.

Who’s who at OCA

Richard RobbinsProfessor Richard Robbins: Painter, Poet, Sculptor, Sportsman

OCA Trustee Richard Robbins was born in 1927. He was the son o Lord Robbins,

chairman o the infuential 1963 committee report on Higher Education.

He attended Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire, where his prowess on the sports eld

outshone his academic ability. Ater a brie spell in the army he resumed his education

reading literature at Oxord.

Richard went on to study art at Goldsmith’s and the Slade, specialising in drawing,

painting and sculpture, beore embarking on a career as an art teacher. He taught or

33 years at Hornsey School o Art, later part o Middlesex University, becoming Proessor

Emeritus in 1993. Unlike many o his contemporaries in art schools, he rmly believed in

the importance o drawing; a principle that the Open College o the Arts still hold rmly

to. He was a trustee o the OCA rom its oundation in 1987. He was elected an Honorary

Member o the Royal Society o British Artists in 2004.

Richard passed away on July 28th 2009.

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


I have been involved with art all my lie and have painted and

exhibited my work over a period o years. I elt I needed a resh

challenge and when I discovered that the Open College o the

Arts were oering an Arts degree I decided that working or this

degree would ull my requirements.

Ater my application onto the course I was given Prior Learning

Points towards the Degree in acknowlgement o my previous

qualications and experience. In order to obtain the degree I

needed to work through Level Three o the Painting course. This

was to be my personal starting point.

I was sent the course module or Your Own Exhibition and was

immediately impressed by the writing o Ian Simpson, who

ormulated and wrote the module. I ound it to be inormative

and comprehensive as well as leaving opportunities or individual

creativity.

I decided to work with a personal tutor as I value the opportunity

or one to one contact and discussion. I enjoyed working through

the module. Some o the work was used to represent the College

at the Birmingham Exhibition centre. It was assessed according to

the college procedures.

I next embarked on the nal module - Painting Three advanced.

I was required to write my own module ollowing the College

module programme. I ound this to be very thought provoking

and I discussed it at length with my tutor Rhonda Fenwick. I elt

that I needed to compose a personal structure that would:

Sum up my previous work to date.•

Stretch my thought processes and abilities.•

Give me a personal direction or uture artistic study.•

All this would give me a new logical working system o work.

Having completed the course I now realise that my “art” is all

about my response to what is really there in the environment. I

am not just a landscape painter. It goes much deeper than that,

I use the environment as a jumping o point to explore dierent

dimensions o reality. Hence my work can result in a naturalistic

interpretation or equally may be totally abstract. I need to explore

this at greater depth and I now have my artistic challenge.

This is now my “way orward” in uture development, and it is the

result o working or my degree with the Open College o the Arts.

The whole experience has been very worthwhile, challenging,

educational, and satisying.

Joan Barker

Student: Joan Barker

First class art

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


Since leaving school,

I have been very

lucky with being

able to make a

living rom either

playing or teaching

the guitar. However,

sometimes there are

areas o music that I

need to know more

about, or oten eel Ineed a skills top up.

Working ull time it

is dicult to nd a

course that you can

commit to and keep your work/ lie balance, whilst maintaining

your sanity.

Having previously taken several distance learning courses, I had

either ound them less than satisactory, or ound it dicult to

sustain the level o work or the duration o the course. I was,

then, pleasantly surprised to nd the Open College o the Arts,and eagerly signed up or Composing Music 1.

Several days ater signing up, the course material arrived. This

included course textbooks, notebooks, CD’s and a descant recorder.

Although the recorder did bring back memories o being asked to

leave the recorder group at my primary school, I didn’t let this

put me o, and read through the course. [Incidentally this course

has now been re-written and no longer eatures the recorder! -

Editor]

The course text started o at a grass roots level, and soon

progressively built up its pace to a airly advanced level. The rst

two assignments I composed consisted o several short percussion

pieces, ollowed by a recorder trio. The rst three pieces were

approximately a minute in length, and the pieces in the latter hal

o the course were about three minutes in length.

My tutor or the course was Patric Stanord. Patric is a very well

known and respected composer and arranger, whom - I only

recently learnt - was Proessor o Composition at the Guildhall

School o Music in the 1970s. The tutoring o the assignments

was excellent. My tutor’s comments were always very supportive,

whilst also encouraging me to improve my work and experiment

with new ideas.

I submitted all o my assignments to Patric online as a Sibelius le,

which worked really well. I would highly recommend any potential

composition students to buy a computer notation package, as this

will help you produce proessional looking scores, whilst being

able to hear how your ideas sound.

Ater completing Composing 1, I signed up or Composing 2. This

was a much more enjoyable course. However, the compositions

were a lot more demanding and the level o detail required in the

assignments was considerably higher than in Composing 1. In

Composing 1 most o my pieces were trio pieces o a maximumlength o 3 minutes; whilst with Composing 2 I composed a ull

choral piece, a string quartet and a brass quintet, each over 5

minutes in length.

I ound the assignments in Composing 2 to be demanding, but

the amount I eel I have learnt rom these assignments has been

well worth the extra eort put in.

Both courses were excellent and the tutoring was rst class. As

a non-orchestral musician I eel that studying with the OCA has

helped improve my all-round knowledge, and given me morecondence in my own composing and arranging.

Student: Paul Wisby

Confidence incomposition

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


I started writing songs when I was in my teens and went on

to study music ormally in my mid 20s, leading, eventually, to

degrees with both Durham University and the Open University.

The music course at Durham had an element o composition

and I decided recently to take this urther with the Open College

o the Arts. The OCA course is the only one that I am aware o

which allows the fexibility that I need to work around my health

issues.

As I live in Edinburgh, I would have to travel a considerable

distance to attend tutorials or the course I have chosen. Without

the stimulation o ace to ace contact with a tutor and other

OCA music students, I have elt rather isolated in my studying.

This said, I have ound that the eedback by post and telephone

rom my OCA tutor, Patric Standord, has been very helpul and

encouraging.

Earlier this year (2009), one o my songs was perormed at the

Edinburgh Music Club, where a perormance o a piece I composed

at Durham is now planned or the new year. I hope to ollow this

up with perormances o more recent compositions, including, o

course, those I have written or the OCA course.

OCA Music

competition

We are now launching our rst ever competition aimed exclusively at

music students.

Task: choose one only o the two traditional olk tunes pictured below

(and available via E-mail rom the OCA oce) and produce your own

arrangement.

Format for entries: Ideally entries should be submitted in a Sibelius

le so that we can listen to the entry as well as read the score. However,

we recognise everyone doesn’t have that particular sotware so will

accept alternatives provided we are able to read and hear them here.

Please contact Paul Vincent i you would like to discuss this urther

( Tel 0800 731 2116).

Closing date: entries should be emailed to Paul Vincent at OCA by

Friday January 29th 2010 at [email protected].

Length: we are looking or something brie – say about 50 to 60

seconds. The idea is to create something short and memorable, not an

extended work!

Style: eel ree to use whatever style you wish – an unaccompanied

harmonisation or a 4 part choir; an arrangement or a melody instrument

with accompaniment; a two part setting or violin and fute; a rock, jazz

or olk treatment etc. Be as creative (or restrained!) as you wish.

Prize: there will be a suitably modest prize! The winning entrant

will receive a £50 Amazon token, and the kudos o an honourable

mention on the OCA website. We may also place the winning entry as

Student:

Jamie Dunnett

an audio le on the website or a brie period, but there are

some technical issues we would need to resolve rst so are not

making this a commitment.

Judges: entries will be judged by a panel comprising PatricStandord (Music Course Leader), Gareth Dent (Chie Executive)

and Andrew Watson (Director o Development).

Copyright: we reserve the right to use entries or OCA publicity

purposes (with appropriate credits, o course). Please don’t

submit an arrangement i you are unhappy about this.

For the future: i the competition goes well, we intend to run

more in the uture. Do let us have your ideas. For example we

might be inviting you to come up with a jingle or signature tune

or the OCA – but that’s or another day!

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


6

I was rst drawn into

the OCA experience as

an adviser in the early

1980s when I was then

Head o Music at Leeds

University’s Bretton Hall

College. Approaches

to distance learning

in music were being

explored and it was

several years beore a

reasonably satisactory

model was produced.

Rather predictably,

although the course was called Composing Music, its Level 1

devoted much space and project work to learning about the

basic principles o musical notation, the so-called rudiments o

music. This was in line with the OCA philosophy at the time –

to admit anyone who had an enthusiasm or learning even i they did not possess any technical knowledge o the subject.

Maybe it was the result o a book o mine - Projects: a course

in musical composition – which Stainer & Bell published in

1992 (and is still in print!), or because a year later I retired

rom the arduous and increasingly administrative university

post, that the OCA invited me to become a music tutor.

I came to Bretton in 1980 rom 15 years as proessor at

the Guildhall School o Music in London. During the

1980s in a new home in Yorkshire I had to balance (rather

miraculously) the running o a large collegiate musicdepartment, preparing new BA courses or validation and

revitalizing the existing stagnation in the department,

responding to a BBC commission to write a symphony

or the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, a group o choral

works or Hungarian and Estonian choirs and a series

o new chamber music pieces – alongside caring or

my amily and its demanding components o three

children passing through junior and senior schools to

university. But it all helped to ocus the mind!

In ‘retirement’ I was devoting mysel much more to

composing. Among several other new compositions I completed

a large-scale ‘Masque’ or chorus and orchestra – ve scenes

about St Francis and his communion with the birds – and this was

awarded the First International Composers’ Prize of Budapest in

1996. It received a grand perormance or Hungarian Radio and

Television. Three years later I gained another major International

award in Belgium or a new Clarinet Quintet. All this and more

was making up or lost creative time in academic administration

and persuading me that I could make it up successully.

Tutor: Patric Standford

Music course author

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


7

Alongside was more teaching, critical reviewing,

writing and journalism and I was happy to be

invited to assist an enterprise like the OCA which

endeavoured to meet the voluntary enthusiasm

o its students with proessional guidance. I wasalso asked to teach undergraduate composition

students at the University o Hudderseld, and this

parallel between the issues raised in the ‘classroom’

and those by correspondence courses became most

useul when eventually I was asked to carry out

a radical revision o the OCA’s Composing Music

courses. With the support and encouragement o

the new Chie Executive Gareth Dent, and the wise

guidance o my ‘editor’ Andrew Watson, the new course

was completed last autumn. It is a careully considered

course and assaults two pleasant but now outdated OCA

traditions. Students do, ater all, need some secure grounding in

the undamental techniques o musical notation and theory, and

to provide this we recommend a amiliarity with grades 1-5 o a

music theory course beore beginning. And the use o technology

is obligatory or both students and tutors - projects are submittedas email attachments!

It is all very exciting. The course has already enrolled its initial

cohort o students and we shall search more widely than in the

past or others to take on these challenges. It is not a course

that seeks to give students a style. Composing is a mysterious

business, but the process is supported by technical resources that

it is good to know about and use. The course seeks to make

students aware o these techniques and encourages the building

o resh ‘soundscapes’ and hopeully the making o a personal

creative voice.

8/14/2019 Showcase 09 04


8

Date Workshop Location

18th & 25th January 2010 Pick up your pen and write! Bristol

27th February 2010 Still Lie – Man-made objects Edinburgh

6th - 7th March 2010 Get back to lie on Skye Isle o Skye

20th March 2010 Still Lie – Man-made objects (2) Edinburgh

17th April 2010 Figuring it out! York

18th April 2010 Drawing rom the Model Broadwindsor, Dorset

24th April 2010 Still Lie - groups o objects Edinburgh

24th April 2010 Pastel & Mixed Media Barnsley 2nd May 2010 Painting rom the Model Broadwindsor

29th May 2010 Screen Process; Print Simply! Barnsley

3rd - 7th May 2010 Sketchbooks: A sense o place Plockton

8th May 2010 Celebration o Colour Broadwindsor, Dorset

9th May 2010 Sketching at the Natural History Museum London

15th May 2010 Tone & Form Edinburgh

15th May 2010 Monotype + Techniques York

29th May 2010 Drawing & Painting a Still Lie Edinburgh

5th June 2010 Figuring it out! Barnsley

18th June 2010 Sketching on Hampstead Heath London

19th June 2010 Figure drawing Edinburgh

19th June 2010 Sketching at Kew Richmond, Surrey

19th June 2010 Exploring Chinese brushwork designs York

26th June 2010 Painting “En Plein Air” by the coast Milord on Sea

3rd July 2010 Monotype + Techniques Barnsley

11th July 2010 Along the Thames with a Sketchbook Central London

11 - 12th July 2010 Working in Clay rom the Model Broadwindsor, Dorset

17th July 2010 Still Lie York

23rd August 2010 Drawing Carnorth

workshopsfor more detailscall 0800 731 2116

2 0 1

0

Showcase 09 04

Documents

Transcript of Showcase 09 04