The IMMSANE Network
International media composers meet the Dutch scene in 2022
The IMMSANE network stands for the International Media Music and Sound Arts Network in Education and was founded in 2019 by Dr. Yati Durant (UK, USA) and Prof. André Bellmont (CH). The origin of the acronym IMMSANE came out of a synthesis of the topics and values we wished to represent – and less about any sort of joke(!) – rather, we aim to develop collaborations with colleagues and institutions around the globe that run media music and sound arts-related programmes and pedagogic projects.
The IMMSANE network has morphed from its previous incarnation; the European Education Alliance for Media Music and Sound (EEAMS, 2014 – 2019), which was supported by the Soundtrack Cologne festival. This now exists as the AcadeMeet session within that festival. Since 2010 at these meetings, we have discussed issues related to pedagogy in media music and sound, often introducing new forms of teaching, design of programmes and frameworks related to research. The overarching benefit of these meetings has been colleagues meeting other colleagues and developing collaborations together.
However, before IMMSANE, these meetings were mostly attended by only European (and the occasional American) colleagues. At the same time, we became aware of so many interesting new fields of media music and sound pedagogy and industry taking place on other continents that are important for us also to know about. Currently, many colleagues are telling us recently about students from China, India, Malaysia, the Middle East and also Africa coming to study. So, it has become a matter of pedagogic necessity to find out more about what sort of scenes these students face and will face once they finish their studies and return home.
Our first International Congress, the IMMSANE Zurich 2020, took place during the Zurich International Film Festival and was held in collaboration with Soundtrack Zurich at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) from 02. – 03.10.2020. Even though this was during Covid, we were very fortunate to hold successful in-person meetings (with all of the events also streaming online) with Keynotes by Prof. Rens Machielse (former Director of Music and Technology at HKU) and Prof. Bryan Minghui (Peking University and the China Conservatory of Music). The diversity of these keynotes at IMMSANE Zurich 2020, along with many case studies and panels featuring prominent Swiss, German and Italian film composers and sound artists was a great example of the representation of the kinds of International focus we believe in.
Since then, IMMSANE has grown to include more than 6 institutional members and 25 individual and student members from around the world. Some of our institutional members are offering online courses or are online-exclusive media music programmes, which means they are adapting to the newness of creating effective International programmes for extremely diverse students from all over the world. As a result, we support this by offering web-sessions via Zoom for IMMSANE members, which engage in topics from effective music business, media music competitions criteria, analysis and theory and critique and marking of submission portfolios. These web-sessions are delivered by well-known professors and professionals who are also IMMSANE members and are designed to benefit both academic professors and teachers as well as their students. All of these ZOOM web-sessions, meeting minutes, materials, resources, blogs and videos are archived in a member portal for members to access at any time.
Our next IMMSANE Congress will be hosted by HKU Music and Technology in Utrecht and take place in Autumn 2022 (dates TBC). We are keen to develop this event to be tightly integrated with the Dutch film composition and sound arts scene, while at the same time providing a platform to introduce our network and many other International colleagues to each other. The collaborations will extend to developing a programme that aligns with the Netherlands Film Festival as well as the Muziekinstituut Multimedia (MIMM) to include other media music events, screenings and seminars which members of IMMSANE and the public can take part in. It will be a really wonderful opportunity to engage with pedagogy and media music/sound arts colleagues in the beautiful city of Utrecht in 2022 and we hope to attract many International colleagues as well.
The programme and dates for the IMMSANE Congress HKU 2022 will be made official on the IMMSANE website (https://www.immsane.com) after our yearly meeting at the ZHdK Zurich 01.10.2021. Academics, professional, their institutions and students can become members for a yearly membership fee at: https://www.immsane.com/become-a-member. For more information about the Netherlands Film Festival go here: https://www.filmfestival.nl/en/home-festival-eng/. For more information about Muziekinstituut Multimedia (MIMM) go here: https://www.mimm.nl/.
Dr. Yati Durant
music composer
Yati Durant is a US born composer of concert and film music, lecturer, trumpeter and conductor living in Edinburgh, UK. He has studied with Krzysztof Meyer and Hans Ulrich Humpert at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, as well as with George Crumb, Philip Lasser, Narcis Bonet, Lee Konitz and conducting with Jonathan Brett. He is a multi-instrumentalist and active performer and producer of jazz and improvisatory music, contemporary acoustic and electronic music and music for film and media. He holds a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Edinburgh and a Meisterklasse Konzertexam from the Hochschule für Musik Köln. His compositions and film scores have received many prizes from International festivals, and he has received commissions and premieres from many well-known artists and ensembles from around the world. His TV and Film credits include work for WDR, ARD, HBO, MTV, Disney and many others. He is a visiting Professor of Film Music Conducting at the Rovigo Conservatory of Music “Francesco Venezze” and teacher in film music for Thinkspace UK. He is the former Programme Director of MSc Composition for Screen at the University of Edinburgh (2010 – 2019) and General Director of the International Media Music and Sound Arts Network in Education (IMMSANE) since 2019.
