Get to Know Creative Music Production MA Lead Richard Scott

With a brand-new course comes a brilliant new tutor. Renowned electroacoustic composer and performer Richard Scott is the new lead of our Creative Music Production Masters programme. Get to know him in this interview.

They say that a master is a beginner that kept on beginning. How many times have you begun, since the start of your musical journey? New instruments and equipment, new techniques and approaches, new qualifications, new challenges. Since learning never stops, at Catalyst, we believe mastery is a moving target. But begin our boundary-pushing new Creative Music Production master's degree and you’ll certainly come closer to grasping it.

With a brand-new course comes a brilliant new tutor. Heading up the hyper-flexible one-year programme is electroacoustic composer and performer Richard Scott. Achieving international renown for his experimental and improvised approach, Richard has been called “a singular virtuoso” and “a master of the analogue synthesizer.” His 2016 album Several Circles was described as “fantastically colourful and abstract,” “brilliant and confounding” and “a universe all of its own.” Who better to guide dBs Berlin’s creative minds to the top of their game?

Just days before the beginning of the new school year, we caught up with the pipe smoker and professional wire-tinkerer for a quick interview.

Welcome! What are you going to be doing at Catalyst?

Thanks. I will lead our new Creative Music Production MA and also teach on the Creative Audio Production & Sound Engineering Bachelor dissertation module.

What were you doing before you came to Catalyst?

I have been a composer of electroacoustic music and a performer of improvised music (mostly on modular synthesizers) for many years. I also help to organise concert series such as Basic Electricity and Sound Anatomy. And I work as a mastering engineer, mostly for avant garde, experimental and improvised music.

Why us?

Catalyst is not too stuck in conventional academic ideas. It values creativity and seems like a good place to develop new ideas.

What impact do you hope to have at the school this year?

I hope to raise the profile of what artistic research can do and mean, initially within the MA programme. But I’d like to think that in the longer term this could have consequences for the direction of the school as whole.

What do you recommend we watch, see or listen to this weekend?

Listen to Autechre‘s new eight-hour album.

Follow Richard Scott on Facebook, Bandcamp, Vimeo and his website.

Get to know another tutor of our Creative Music Production MA: Read our interview with audiovisual artist Doron Sadja.