This article adopts a disability studies perspective to evaluate the ways in which Mauricio Kagel's Repertoire from Staatstheater reimagines human bodies. Objects and bodies interact in myriad ways within the one hundred vignettes of Repertoire: some objects hinder or aid the bodies on stage, while others become incorporated within the body, acting as a single expressive unit. My analysis demonstrates the ways in which both objects and bodies transform their traditional roles as ascribed by society, rejecting procrustean physiques. Using disability studies concepts such as embodiment and experientialism I evaluate sound and physical action as inextricable expressions of imaginative corporealities. Reflecting upon Kagel's identity as an outsider of the European avant-garde, as well as his irreverence for oppressive social institutions, I evince that other forms of hierarchical disruptions are at play, namely that abled bodies do not preside over disabled ones and notions of beauty hold no clout.

Masculinity is not just about being the loudest; it is a contradictory network of relationships relating to power, control and work. Deploying the methodology first developed in Raewyn Connell's Masculinities (1995), this article argues that Wandelweiser works exhibit masculine social ordering. Silence presents apparent creative agency which is ultimately governed by the composer; fragile timbres strain the bodies of both the performers and listeners and encourage constant labour; openness displaces authorship, leaving interpreters to fill a composer-shaped hole. Analysis of these facets reveals a top-down power dynamic from these composers of the quiet that is integrally related to Connell's conception of hegemonic masculinity: the composer encourages reproduction and questioning of their dominant role from interpreters, which, counterintuitively, implicates their position of power. This investigation is interwoven with diary entries exposing and critiquing my own compositional process, demonstrating how masculinity is performed throughout my creative process and its subsequent documentation. This article explores how subversive, even if invisible, elements of masculinity lie within the process and product of composing instrumental music that initially may seem to counter typical ‘masculine’ musics.

This article interprets John Zorn's composition Interzone (2010) by comparing it to the eponymous place that is found throughout William S. Burroughs’ early novels. This is done through linking some of the ‘sound blocks’ that make up Zorn's composition to selected passages from Burroughs’ books as well as to specific events from the lives of Interzone's two dedicatees: Burroughs, and his associate, the writer and painter Brion Gysin. Zorn's disjointed, chaotic arrangement of sound blocks, and by extension their extra-musical associations, is then shown to emulate the dream-like structure of the phantasmatic place that is Interzone, which Burroughs created for his novels with the aid of Gysin's ‘cut-up’ method. Through these extra-musical connotations, it is demonstrated that Zorn's composition imitates Interzone's distortion of place; of internal and external space; and, most importantly, of time.

Colin Riley's collaborative and curated project In Place (2015–18) – with its exploration of memory, place, language and identity – becomes a stimulus for considering the intertwining relationship between the song cycle and the album form. Featuring seven commissioned poets alongside found texts, In Place simultaneously assembles fragments of contemporary Britain and its broken tongues whilst reflecting on the current possibilities for binding these through song. Riley and his collaborators construct a sense of place in the movements between idiom, psychogeography, field recordings, samples, instrumental voices, speech and song, rather than from any fixed location, reference, identity or origin. I argue that this adapts and learns from the history of the album as a form of double binding, both of a finite set of materials and, crucially, of a community or interpersonal relations. With its development in the modern era through the poetry collection, song cycle, and recording, the album provides a model for living, collective remembrance, contrasting with the archival paradigm of preserving cultural authority. Its transformation and persistence are pursued with the emergence of the concept album through to music streaming, offering an historical framework in which In Place can be appreciated as a contribution to the contemporary ‘return to memory’.

A critique of politically engaged art is that gallery-dwellers, concert-goers and theatre-lovers share the same political inclination as the artists. Often known as ‘preaching to the choir’, the critique holds that art's power to challenge and persuade is rendered valueless when it is experienced only by people who already hold the same (typically leftist) ideas. In this article I suggest three distinct yet interconnected responses to this critique: namely, ‘expanding’, ‘galvanising’ and ‘activating’ the choir. In the first part I explore ‘expanding’ and ‘galvanising’ through works by Stefan Prins, Sarah Nicolls, Pamela Z and Soosan Lolavar. In the second half I discuss how I ‘activate’ the choir in my own work.

The organising of tools, whether real or virtual, is an essential part of composition that is often overlooked. This article aims to generate a discussion about how a composer's working environment can permeate the compositional process and contribute to or inform their ideations. Central to this understanding, in terms of agency, has been to consider workflow as a subset of Actor–Network Theory. Here, a musical composition is viewed as a multiplicity of relationships between workflow and ideations, and suggests an expanded practice of musical creation that explores the various agencies that shape a composition. Nevertheless, this article is not intended as a comprehensive account, but only, as Bruno Latour would put it, ‘to add in a messy way to a messy account of a messy world’.

‘There has always been a state of crisis’, we are told in Ziad Nawfal's wonderful introduction to the underground music scene in Beirut. That the corona restrictions comprise a rather different crisis to that of Lebanon's capital should be stressed, yet it will have been no easy task creating any kind of Huddersfield festival this year. That any event could occur at all is an achievement on the part of the festival team and the ensembles, musicians, broadcasters and composers with whom they work. Adaptation and renewal are a vital part of a new musicians’ toolkit, even if the pace of change can be bewildering.

What constitutes a concert? While many have played with the form, the basics – performers and audience in a shared space – seemed self-evident. However, at a time when restrictions limit or prevent gatherings of performers and audience, this question has assumed new significance. Indeed, the area of live music performance has borne the brunt of many of the ongoing uncertainties, changes and debates of recent months. In the midst of disappointing and unsettling news about cancellations and postponements, it was a welcome relief to read that Psappha decided to go ahead with their 2020–21 concert series. As one of the UK's preeminent contemporary music ensembles, Psappha's influence extends far beyond its Manchester home, reaching a worldwide audience via its YouTube channel. Psappha's current programme is testament to the ensemble's vision, juxtaposing well-known monoliths from the twentieth-century repertoire against works by emerging composers and those whose music is heard less often in the UK.

The Covid-19 pandemic is an extremely difficult time for musicians, and some, out of necessity and perhaps curiosity and experimentation, have been exploring digital realisations of music, such as live streamed or pre-recorded concerts. Examples that I have experienced or have been a part of include the experimental music ensemble Bastard Assignment's Lockdown Jams involving Zoom experiments, the experimental Free Range Concert Series streamed on YouTube, the Montrose Composers’ Club Zoom collaborations, and The Ensemble Whose Name is Uhhhhmm … (formerly Lil’ Jürg Frey) who perform music in Animal Crossing using in-game sounds.