Special Projects

Donald has been involved in two substantial microtonal projects. In the first, he worked initially with Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman, later with Philippe Renard and Rachel Barnes, in the development of microtonal fingerings, repertoire and resources for the recorder. The outcomes are ongoing but have included, to date, the co-authorship of The Quarter-Tone Recorder Manual with Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman; the commissioning of new work through Ensemble QTR (of which Bousted was artistic director 1998-2001); the composition of a number of substantial microtonal works for recorder including the 25 minute duo A Journey Among Travellers (which was recorded with funding from the Arts Council of England) and research into the performance of quarter-tones on the recorder (this was a part of PhD research which has been expanded in the article An Empirical Study in Quarter-Tone Intonation and published in Contemporary Music Review and the Huygens-Fokker Yearbook, 2004).

In the second project, Bousted has researched, with Stephen Altoft, and written widely for, the microtonal trumpet. This work was initiated while Bousted was Composer in Residence at the Centre for New Musical Instruments (CNMI) at London Guildhall (now Metropolitan) University and was intended to utilise a new 19- and 24-division trumpet which was at prototype stage. This prototype, designed by David Cowie and constructed by modifying a standard model Boosey and Hawkes instrument, was used by Bruce Nockes in a concert at LGU in June, 2002, in which a sample of this new repertoire was first performed. Stephen Altoft has also been very keen to develop ways of using a standard trumpet in C for microtonal repertoire. 24 studies have been written by Bousted with the purpose of both developing quarter-tone fingering for the standard trumpet and/or providing repertoire for quarter-tone and 19-division trumpets. These studies form the basis of a manual for microtonal trumpet playing which is presented as a website (www.microtonaltrumpet.com). In addition, new repertoire has been written specifically for trumpets in 24- and 19-divisions both solo and for the trumpet and percussion duo, duo Contour (Stephen Altoft and Lee Ferguson).