The voice with the cello: Siete canciones populares españolas.
(2024)
author(s): Paloma Garrote Vélez
published in: Codarts
With this research, I intended to make a journey through Siete Canciones Populares Españolas (1914) by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), in its arrangement for cello and piano by Maurice Maréchal (1892-1964), exploring the impact of the most common techniques in singing, such as phrasing, prosody, accentuation or diction among others, on the cello. My main goal was being aware of the potential contact points between both instruments to improve my interpretation.
Besides the exploration of the vocal technique, in each part of the research the most characteristic aspects of each song were analyzed. In the first cycle, I focused on longer phrasing and breathing in accordance with the text to generate pauses in the melody, using El paño moruno, Nana and Asturiana. In the second cycle, I focused on the diction and articulation, and also on the techniques of flamenco playing in Cancion and Polo. Finally, the third cycle explores the use of vibrato and projection using the Jota.
Laments for a Modern World: Exploring the pathetic capabilities of 17th-century Laments
(2023)
author(s): Ai Horton
published in: KC Research Portal
This thesis investigates the pathetic capabilities of the 17th-century vocal Lament. After first establishing an overview of the social and cultural conventions that influenced compositional choices, fourteen historic Laments from western Europe are analyzed to determine how they are able to evoke the feeling of grief. These pathetic elements are then applied to the composition of four new Laments for a Modern World, which couple 17th-century compositional techniques with newly commissioned texts that amplify stories including miscarriage, race-relations, displacement from one's homeland, and mental health.
No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine
(2022)
author(s): Sean Bell
published in: KC Research Portal
Sean Bell
Student number: 3230643
Master Early Music Voice
Research supervisor: Dr. Inês de Avena Braga
Title: No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine
Research question: How can I create a stage performance combining and connecting my two sound worlds/style identities as a performer?
Summary of the results of the research:
In this research I have explored the creative development of a stage performance, combining operatic music by Handel with contemporary performance art. Through this I have explored how I can combine my duality as a performer: the early music singer and the contemporary performer and creator. This project and its connected research are a part of my artistic development as a musician, creator and performer, and the urge to explore this music and questions grew out of previous projects and ideas.
I have created and developed my project through following a consequential progression of artistic choices, and through this space that has unfolded I have come to find an essential identity of myself as a performer and creator. By being honest towards myself through the critical reflection, I have been able to investigate my process, my preferences, inspirations and my distinct personal style. Through this I have been able to strengthen my artistic identity and the artistic tools I use, bringing forth a more complete performer.
Short biography:
Sean Bell is a countertenor and performance artist from Oslo. His studies centre mainly on chamber and sacred music and opera, yet also includes a focus on new ideas and methods of interpreting classical and contemporary repertoire. Through sonic imaginations and arrangements, he explores this repertoire in new ways. This has led him to a series of collaborations and solo performances on the border line between classical music and performance art. Bell also works with contemporary music and has premiered several pieces for countertenor. He is an active improviser, plays baroque guitar and engages in instrument building and music electronics.
I'm Nobody, Who am I?
(2019)
author(s): Boukje van Gelder
published in: KC Research Portal
Student Number
3169227
Supervisor(s)
Andrew Wright
Title
I'm Nobody, who am I
Research Question
My research question is too long for the form.
Summary
Emily Dickinson's poetry can be hard to understand the first time you read it. How then can the artist communicate an Emily Dickinson poem in a song in a way that an audience grasps the meaning the first time? For that reason, you need to define who you are on stage and what you want to communicate. But what do you communicate on stage when your first sentence is 'I'm Nobody!'? This research turns Nobodies into Somebodies and the other way around by looking at the voices (the characters) that are present in the poems of Emily Dickinson, specifically the poem 'I'm Nobody!'. Who speaks to whom? The research makes a journey from Emily Dickinson to scholars who write about her, composers who make songs on her poems and in the end to the performer who with all these people in her mind communicates the poem and the song to the audience. Finally, the voices in the poem become defined as various characters that can be performed on different settings of 'I'm Nobody!' by Ernst Bacon, Nick Raspa and Lori Laitman. From something vague and ungraspable the poem and its voices become very concrete and close to our own daily lives.
Short Bio
Mezzo soprano Boukje started singing as soon as she could speak. After her Bachelor’s in History at the Utrecht University, she decided that she wanted to explore as much as possible about singing. In 2017 she graduated from the Fontys Conservatory in Tilburg and started her Master's in the Royal Conservatoire. Currently, she studies with Catrin Wyn-Davies. Boukje performed as a soloist in different concerts. She sang, for example, the alto solos in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Haydn’s Stabat Mater, Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle and she sang the role of Hänsel in the staged opera of Hänsel und Gretel from Humperdinck.
Monteverdi’s lamenti and lettere amorose and the pre-existing art of declamation
(2019)
author(s): Judith Sepulchre
published in: KC Research Portal
« Should the interpretation of Monteverdi’s lamenti and lettere amorose be closer to the pre-existing art of declamation? »
Nowadays, Monteverdi has become so sacred to the Early musician, that we are afraid of disturbing his art in our interpretation of his written down musical lines. So we stick to what is written, respecting every pitch, every note value, and God forbid we change the tactus! For a lot of Monteverdi’s music, this is a respectable approach. However, when it comes to the interpretation of his lamentations (lamenti) and love letters (lettere amorose), one asks themselves whether it should perhaps be done in a more declamative way. These two genres are composed in the stile recitativo and carry so much unrepeated text that it seems almost improbable that one should approach these compositions from the notes rather than from the poetry. If the seconda pratica is the beginning reign of the text over the harmony in the composition process, then why not adopt this same concept in the interpretation process?
Throughout this research, I will first observe the historical context of these two genres and their connections with the world of the Commedia dell’Arte. I will then discuss the very delicate question of the tactus. And finally, I will attempt to interpret a couple of Monteverdi’s compositions, basing myself on the declamation skills of a Commedia dell’Arte specialist with whom I worked closely.
Musified togetherness: Co-singing in families living with dementia
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Helene Waage
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
My PhD project aims to explore some of the potentials – and related implications – of low-threshold daily-life singing in the context of people living with dementia and their close ones. A central issue is how people with dementia and their relatives might use, and experience, singing as an integrated part of communication and interaction in their daily life. Accordingly, I propose the concept of co-singing to offer a supplemental approach to (indirect) music therapy and to music-therapeutic caregiving and caregiver singing developed within professional dementia care. Co-singing highlights singing as a relational activity – a form of togetherness – and draws on the people’s own experiences with singing throughout their lives.
The project’s empirical material consists of an exploratory case study inspired by participatory action research. The participants were an older woman living with dementia and her daughter. Together, we explored simple singing activities which they could integrate into their daily lives based on their preferences, interests and previous experiences. Theoretically, the PhD project is grounded in Karen Barad’s agential realism and theories connected to affirmative philosophy, neuropsychology and neurophysiology. The thesis’ research questions engage different aspects of co-singing as practice and experience; its underlying processes and mechanisms; and its conceptual implications. Thus, the research process unveils different aspects of co-singing in families living with dementia as a material-discursive practice (Barad, 2007).
Through theoretical and empirical exploration and diffraction, I introduce multiple perspectives to the notion of co-singing in families living with dementia. The thesis contributes to new knowledge by exploring and weaving together different theories and research findings with the case study and in this way illuminating affirmative and relational aspects of everyday singing for people with dementia and their close ones. Furthermore, the thesis proposes “co-singing” and various forms of “musified togetherness” as suitable terms and concepts – and examples of everyday practices – to convey the implications of such an approach to singing and dementia. Through its exploration via diffractive analysis in several layers, the thesis also provides a methodological contribution to performative and post-qualitative research.