Introducing Bofan 

Bofan Ma is an experimental composer from Zhengzhou, Henan Province in China. He came to Manchester in 2015 to begin studying for his Masters degree, and is now in the final stages of his PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music. Previously he had studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and also piano and composition in Shanghai, in music schools affiliated to the Conservatoire. He was encouraged by his mother to study piano from the age of four, and is the first musician in his family. 

On being a ‘composer’ Bofan finds the term ‘composer’ limiting. He likes to explore through his creative work an embodied way of ‘composing’, and question what else could be ‘composed’ on top of writing music in a conventional sense. It leads him to use different media in combination with sound, as in the video example above, #outtakes I – the first piece in his #outtakes series. 

“It's to incorporate both visual and aural elements, and to regard the whole process as making music. And I think a lot of the elements, the visual elements, particularly in the video in that piece, can be attributed to my tendency of critiquing stereotypes. Both cultural stereotypes and artistic ones. So I think the expectation of what music is is also part of it. And it does also symbolise a kind of situation in which different information is constantly thrown at you. Especially contradictory ones. Like trying to understand a certain event from different kind of discourses. They say things differently even though they are facts. But you are trying to get the truth out of those facts.” 

#outtakes I was made during lockdown, and it incorporated the intensity of massed information channelled through a computer, as well as the experience of multiple selves emerging from the Zoom experience. 

“And that's heightened, especially during the lockdown environment where one is staring at the computer screen all the time and not being able to go outside, like, it’s even considered a ‘luxury’ to be able to absorb any sort of ambience. And it’s just like being... overwhelmed or even claustrophobic in a very confined space. And perhaps what I’d like to articulate here, is a sort of acceptance and how to actively engage with an experience as such." 

"Most of the materials are from a Zoom call or multiple Zoom calls with myself on different devices. And it also applies to the sound aspect. Like especially in the middle of the piece, where there appears to be a monologue enclosed by a kind of, uh reverb chain or… a very convoluted, high pitched resonance. It was also from a Zoom call where I deliberately left open mics and speakers on, and that's just resulted in a pile of noises in my room. It is very computerised, and the sound is not of a very high quality. I just left it in, as I think it is uncanny how much it resembles my actual encounter with these surreal times.” 

A Chinese composer in the UK 

Some years ago, Bofan was interested in expressing his Chinese heritage by using pentatonic scales, translating Chinese musical concepts and languages into English and channelling his work in that way. He feels differently at the moment. His interest over the last years has been in creating music that gets at the face-to-face experience of communication. It can involve a visual and sonic focus on apparently peripheral aspects of music-making, and it can involve placing himself – as a visibly Asian person – on the stage. 

“For my PhD topic I started at this intersection between the seen and heard. And I gradually realised that this kind of intersection can be ascribed, or traced, to my kind of identity, and the experience that I had, in terms of living abroad and being away from my home country. Trying to fit in, to grasp a context, and living in between two different sides of the world. It’s an active engagement with contrasting ideologies, for example. A general sense of trying to find a way of communication. And that's why I normally find my materials in a kind of behaviour that's intrinsic to live music performance normally, or historically informed behaviours, but not at the core of the customary ritual. Like to normalise turning pages, smiling to the audience, taking a bow and other bodily engagement with the stage and a space. Trying to find a connection between those things, and to create a sort of responsive framework for performers to find themselves in.” 

The experience of difference was present for Bofan from the time he moved to Shanghai, where the language and lifestyle was distinct from what he had known in the Henan Province. 

“It's a curious thing that we tend to think China's … a kind of homogeneous country. But the culture there is absolutely diverse, and quite different from one place to another. And the language in Shanghai, if the locals only speak Shanghainese, is totally different from, and, unintelligible to Mandarin. It was a fascinating experience of living there from being young. The experience of trying to understand, or trying to find a way out when different languages are spoken is kind of something I have had to get used to since my childhood." 

"It's also different in small things. Like, in my hometown, we're in the part of China where central heating is a thing. But in Shanghai and the entire southern half of the country it is not. You know, from having grown up in a house where central heating is quite essential in winter and something I’ve taken for granted, and to move to Shanghai where the winter is also cold outside, but there's only AC or electric heaters available, at least when I was living there in the early 2000s… it was both shocking and quite interesting. At the beginning.” 

Making music in Manchester 

Bofan came to Manchester initially to study at the RNCM, and with two particular composers, Emily Howard and Larry Goves. He discovered a strong sense of community in the city’s new music scene. He finds plenty of musicians keen to play new and experimental music. He has recently founded his own ensemble and composer collective, The Incógnito Project, alongside two colleagues and friends of his, Zakiya Leeming and Isabel Benito Gutiérrez. This aims to further interdisciplinary collaboration, focusing particularly on aspects of onstage communication and presence in musical performance. One of Bofan’s recent performances was made in collaboration with Kinetic Manchester and Vonnegut Collective, both are dedicated new music initiatives active in the Manchester area. The performance took place in 2019 at the Victoria Baths, a Grade II listed Building in central Manchester. It was immersive and site-responsive, involving field recordings from outside, and speakers distributed around a large, disused swimming pool. It also embraced unexpected, extraneous sounds heard on the day. 

“Musicians were responding to both the venue itself and each other’s physical presence in the venue, like their facial expressions, and movements between various spots around the pool. They also follow a sort of backing track consisting of field recordings of different kind of ambience, totally different from the venue’s swimming pool environment. Sound from my kitchen, like the kitchen hood, and the coffeemaker, and some sort of raindrops and road traffic. And all these were played back from… I think we had six Bluetooth speakers discreetly located in the venue, scattered and distributed. So the audience didn't know where the sound is from. Especially when they are merged with actual traffic noise from nearby roads, and, funnily enough, the giant clock at the top of the building, which uh... chimes every now and then." 

"And the piece was supposed to be starting from when the interval’s just about to finish. Three of the performers initially engage in a conversation with audience. Midway through their conversation, the field recording starts. And that intersects… there’s a kind of overlap with the audience chattering and the realm of existing ambience in the venue. And suddenly the playback starts to become louder and louder and the audience notice there's something going on. And then the ‘performance’ starts.” 

Ultimately the piece was exploring communication between people in both sight and sound, as sounds from outside were brough inside, and their origins made ambiguous. 

"I guess my musical language is deeply embedded with this search for communication. So I think that the kind of visual aural dialogue implies a kind of… just how I want communications to be, in my personal experience, like seeing people face to face and knowing how they respond to what I say. And it's just so much better, and more effective than say, taking a phone call without seeing the other end. So I think this information that sound contains also implies to a sort of visual element in there. And this implication is absolutely essential, and for me, really personal too." 

"I often find myself being surrounded by too many fragmented, often stereotype-informed opinions, and I feel like it’s not always easy to understand or just simply see things as they are. So I want my music to ask questions, as to how we listen to each other and how we process information. I guess it’s also a question about identity, like, how identity can be articulated through music. And I’d say it’s just so much more than making stylistic decisions. And music is such a versatile medium with which this articulation can be made. Overall, I guess, I’m just really grateful for my Chinese identity, for uh... making music in Manchester while being Chinese, and for being given such a rich experience that I can continue to explore through my creative voice.”