Research at CMPCP
The AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) is based in the Faculty of Music and has a total budget over five years of approximately £2.1 million, with an AHRC grant of over £1.7 million and contributions of over £430,000 from the four partner institutions: University of Cambridge (host institution), University of Oxford, King’s College London, and Royal Holloway, University of London. The Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama are also participating in CMPCP’s research.
The Centre’s research programme focuses on live musical performance: as its name implies, the fundamental issue underlying its work is the creative dimension of performance. There are five flagship research projects with associated workshop packages, while an international Performance Studies Network fosters intellectual exchange and collaborative research. CMPCP will award Visiting Fellowships to scholars and musicians working in performance studies around the world, while also providing a host of outreach and knowledge transfer opportunities closer to home. The AHRC is funding two doctoral studentships in the Cambridge Faculty which are directly affiliated to the Centre. A full-time Coordinator is based in the Faculty, along with two Research Assistants. In addition to the Director, Professor John Rink, CMPCP’s directorate consists of Professors Eric Clarke (Oxford), Nicholas Cook (Cambridge), Daniel Leech-Wilkinson (King’s College London), and Tina K. Ramnarine (Royal Holloway). Further details may be found at the Centre’s website.
The establishment at Cambridge of CMPCP forms part of a larger plan for the development of performance studies within the Faculty, taking full advantage of the superb environment for practical music-making which is one of Cambridge’s outstanding features. It also complements existing research activity within the Faculty, including studies of both historically informed and contemporary performance, a wide variety of musicological and ethnomusicological approaches, and the empirical and computational research conducted at the Centre for Science and Music. Moreover, a Mus.M. in Choral Studies is currently in the final stages of approval, with an MPhil programme in performance studies planned to follow. In this light performance studies may be seen not so much as a new specialist area as an additional dimension to the Faculty’s work as a whole.