Musica Practica is an ongoing series of projects exploring reciprocity between writer and reader through musical analogy. Originating in textual work, the project developed into a site-specific radio broadcast and finally a performance devised in collaboration with orchestra conductor Anthony Weeden.

The performance has taken place in London (on the South Bank 2010, at SE8 Gallery 2010, and at Tate Britain 2011); and was performed in the quads of the Sheldonian and Bodleian Library of Oxford in March 2012 (a Modern Art Oxford offsite project). The performance has been described as follows:

A lone orchestra conductor translates the gallery’s ambient sounds and everyday movements into real-time orchestral choreography. Shifting the traditional relations of authorship, score and performance, conductor and audience simultaneously direct one another’s actions.

Earlier Musica Practica projects include a site-specific radio broadcast on Resonance 104.4fm, inviting rhythmical audience participation from its online and analogue listeners; a series of short instructional texts published in TEXT AS vol. IV: AS CONDUCTOR); a performance and panel discussion at SE8 Gallery as part of the Mulberry Tree Press exhibition; and a participatory performance of simultaneous reading at Reading for Reading’s Sake (all 2010).

Images from top:

Tamarin Norwood, Musica Practica. South Bank 2010
Tamarin Norwood, Musica Practica. Photo by Stefan Fuhrmann taken at Late at Tate: Diffusions, 4 February 2011
Tamarin Norwood, Musica Practica. Photo by Stefan Fuhrmann taken at Late at Tate: Diffusions, 4 February 2011