I met with the wonderful Marcella Keating (she/her) at the East London experimental music hub Café OTO to chat all things new music, creative process, and accessibility. The vibe in the space was unusual – a weird low-level buzz somewhere between unnerving and exciting, on-brand for experimental music.
Marcella Keating is a composer and interdisciplinary artist based in London. Working with artists, managing events and running marketing in her day job at an experimental music organisation, she works on her own creative practice through sound as an independent artist.
Her artistic practice has definitely been on a journey. Initially, she felt she had to compose in a suitably “structured” and “rigorous” way for the academic institution. Following her graduation, there was a 6-month hiatus where she felt “I don’t even want to look at music.” After taking that pause, and with renewed gratitude for the ways she was taught how to compose quickly, efficiently and figure out her shortcuts, Marcella has been able to dedicate time into thinking;” What do I really want to write? What am I writing about? What am I
interested in?”
A self-described intuitive composer, Marcella often takes inspiration from extra-musical influences, particularly visual art and literature. Having read the life works of Lorrie Moore and enjoyed the writings of Lydia Davis and Annie Ernaux, Keating’s music often works from text or includes text fragments alongside semi-graphic notations. Never writing a piece from A to Z in full, she tells me “I’m all over the shop. I always say I can hear an idea. And I always start on paper, always scribbly, scribbly, drawing pictures, writing little phrases out. It’s like a little game with myself.”
We chatted about one of her pieces that riffs on this playful process throughout the final score; “sit for a little while”.
MK: “It’s semi-graphic, semi-notated, just for 8 players, of any instruments. We did it in a bunch of different arrangements. The whole idea was like a game, four pages of music. The whole thing was themed around distance and connection. All the players assigned themselves a number 1-8, there were 8 fragments per page. There was always one text fragment, the person reading the text changed every page. It was a very simple concept and I wanted it to be like a game.”
MC: “Yes, I was going to say it seems very much like a game in that sense.”
MK: “Exactly, each page was 1 minute, then they waited like 10 seconds and then played the next page.”
MC: “And did you come up with the idea first and then the material?”
MK: “Yeah, I came up with the concept first, the framework, and all I knew was 8 players. It meant I could then decide how rigorous I wanted the material to be. One player might have a fully notated part, and then some was loops…some was graphic, some had just little suggestions. It felt like the best collaboration of those two elements I had ever done, that there is enough of me and enough “composition”.
MC: “And the best balance between rigour and play?”
MK: “Yeah exactly. That there’s enough player interpretation and chance and theme present in the text too.”
The craft of Keating’s scores and her use of text speaks to her wide-ranging influences. Fragments of poems and essay litter pages with colour coded parts and hand-drawn doodles and structures. Her musical world jumps out from the page into endless interpretations of her reorganisation.
When I asked about her musical inspirations she joked “I think I am actually overexposed to music from my day-job”. Working for an experimental music company producing gigs and being entrusted to curate programmes, “I genuinely will listen to anything, like give me a recording of a train, I’ll listen to it.” Marcella let me know she actively tries to find things to listen to that she doesn’t like. And in those rare cases, ask herself why it is that she doesn’t like it. Now she actually tries to find stuff she doesn’t like and continually expands her listening.
MK: “The music world is so small. And if you aren’t actively getting out of your comfort zone, you end up seeing the same people at gigs all the time and engaging with the same sort of thing.”
Keen to stop the music world getting even more insular, Keating takes it upon herself as a producer of gigs, often with programming influence, to curate events that are accessible. Often thinking, “how would I make this event if I wanted a friend outside the music world to enjoy?”.
MK: “Accessibility is a big buzzword in the music industry now, and people often look to me because I’m young and ask if getting on TikTok will help. But it’s really got to be a financial commitment from business now. It can’t be on audiences to make the effort anymore. Everyone is at a push for funding, and no organisation is perfect, but things like ensuring there’s a quiet area, step free access, gender neutral toilets and signposting what is available clearly online so people know what to expect goes a long way.”
Creatively in terms of programming however, Marcella finds ways of drawing people in through controlling venue space. Always looking for the unexpected twist on a gig, she thinks about the curation of an evening as opposed to a two-hour set. For example, if it’s a string quartet, she wants to put them in a nightclub at 3am on a weekday. Some artists might worry the sounds of bar orders and conversations between friends would ruin the performance, but in her experience, people have chosen to listen over getting a refill. Going
forward, she would love to ease her audiences into the event with a playlist to listen to on the commute or a sound walk prior to the performance. Something that really curates a vibe and works with the space.
At the forefront of gig logistics and helping to shape what we listen to and how, Marcella gave us some key listening recommendations which I have added to our weekly Spotify playlist. Check out her website to see some of her scores and consider attending one of her gigs. Chances are, you’ll see her ushering turntablists into a chapel or tending to a pair of violinists at The Pelican.
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