
Dr Timothy Cooper
Susan Manning Postdoctoral Fellow, December 2023 - September 2024
Home institution: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Timothy Cooper is a composer and recording engineer. In his music he uses microphones as sonic microscopes and loudspeakers to amplify and heighten the qualities of the sounds he records. Tim’s work is often collaborative, working with musicians, artists, and poets amongst others. Since 2019 Tim has been working with Ensemble 1604 composing a concert length show called shadows that in darkness dwell that explores the music and life of English renaissance composer John Dowland. The first work composed for this …shadows that in darkness dwell… was shortlisted for the Scottish Awards for New Music and an Ivor Novello Award. In 2023, Tim was awarded his PhD from the University of St Andrews and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland supervised by Professor Alistair MacDonald and Dr Diana Salazar. Since 2013 he has worked at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, initially as recording engineer and since 2015 as a lecturer.
www.tidetimescramond.wordpress.com
Project title: Micrographia: a new music work for period instruments, electroacoustic music and video
In this project I will continue my work with Ensemble 1604, exploring the composition of new music for performers specialising in the music of the Baroque and the Renaissance. In our work together I draw on the creative input of my colleagues, with musical material generated by them becoming embedded within the final composed work. Our first project together focussed on the life and music of John Dowland, an English composer from the Renaissance. In this project we will focus on the scientific explorations of Robert Hooke, whose treatise Micrographia was the first book that documented observations made through microscope and telescope lenses. The treatise comprises detailed descriptions of various experiments and reproductions of detailed hand drawn images. Alongside Ensemble 1604, I will also be exploring the integration of video into our collaborative practice, with the video materials based on Hooke’s drawings and the spirit of his text descriptions.