Hollie Harding: July 1st – 11th, 2019

Hollie Harding is a composer, researcher and curator of contemporary music events in the UK and overseas. Her most recent project, Melting, Shifting, Liquid World was the first composition to incorporate the use of open-ear, bone-conduction headsets alongside live acoustic and amplified instruments to create a multi-layered sonic environment for the audience to move around and within. The project was awarded funding by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation’s Women Make Music, Hinrichsen Foundation and Gemma Classical Music Trust and was written for electric viola soloist Nic Pendlebury and string ensemble. The work was the concluding piece of her PhD thesis at Trinity Laban looking at different ways of constructing performance scenarios and exploring the impact this has on compositional processes.

Hollie is grateful to have twice received funding from the Norwegian Arts Council to work with Alwynne Pritchard and Sjøforsvarets Musikkorps (Norwegian Navy Band). Other ensembles she has worked with include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, CHROMA ensemble, Castallian String Quartet, Ensemble Via Nova (Weimar) and DeciBells (Basel). She was 2017 Composer in Residence with CoMA and subsequently led workshops on their Summer School in Orkney, and at their 2018 Festival of Contemporary Music for All. She was also one of four selected composers on the Cohan Collective 2018-19 residencies working with choreographers, dancers and members of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Pavilion Dance South West.

The Project:

This was Hollie Harding’s second time staying at the Neither Nor residency space. This time she was working on preparing for her PhD viva exam, thesis title Constructing Performance Scenarios: Exploring the Action, Ensemble and Arena Spaces of Performed Music, Through Composition.

July 8th – 15th, 2018

This was Hollie Harding’s first time staying at the Neither Nor residency space. She was then working towards a fully funded PhD in Composition at Trinity Laban, as the first recipient of the Trinity Laban RDP Scholarship.

Hollie has a longstanding connection with Norway and is grateful to have twice received funding from the Norwegian Arts Council to work with Alwynne Pritchard and Sjøforsvarets Musikkorps (Norwegian Navy Band). Other ensembles she has worked with include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, CHROMA ensemble, Castallian String Quartet, Ensemble Via Nova (Weimar) and DeciBells (Basel). She was 2017 Composer in Residence with CoMA (Contemporary Music for All) and subsequently led workshops on their Summer School in Orkney, and at their 2018 Festival of Contemporary Music for All. She will also be a Cohan Collective Composer in Residence, 2018.

She is Artistic Advisor and Trustee for Borough New Music and has been Director of Production for the London Ear Festival since it began in 2013.

Photo: Thor Brødreskift.

Project:

Whilst in residence Hollie was working on her PhD commentary and a piece for string ensemble, electric viola and tape delivered over bone-conducting headphones.