Exploring the Impact of Regular Performance and Journal Writing on Adolescent Musicians: a Path To Alleviating Musical Performance Anxiety.
(2025)
author(s): Filipe Capitão
published in: KC Research Portal
Musical performance anxiety is a challenge that affects many musicians, often hindering their ability to express themselves fully on stage. Drawing from my own experiences, this project explores how regular performance opportunities and reflective journaling can help young musicians overcome these fears.
Over two weeks of workshops at the Conservatório de Música de Vila do Conde in Portugal, teenagers aged 15 to 18 will participate in performances, write about their experiences in journals, and discuss their reflections with peers. The goal is to help them better understand their emotions, develop practical strategies, and build confidence on stage.
Using questionnaires and journal entries, the project will assess how these tools impact their comfort and growth as performers. Ultimately, the aim is to create a supportive environment where young musicians can face their fears, embrace self-expression, and find joy in their art.
What Is This Image Doing Here? [submitted to VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research - 2025-07-11 10:25]
(2025)
author(s): Giselle Hinterholz
published in: Research Catalogue
This visual essay explores images generated through AI-based expansion of a simple photographic composition.
Without commands or prompts, the system infers human gestures, shadows, and presences — inventing what was never there.
The project questions authorship, visibility, and the power of symbolic residue when language no longer mediates creation.
It is not about representation — it is about refusal, inference, and the unsettling persistence of images beyond intention.
Intermundium - Inhabiting the Space Between Musical Worlds
(2025)
author(s): Trina Bass Coleman
published in: NMH Student Portal
Inhabiting the Space Between Musical Worlds
Focusing a cultural lens and awareness of my own diverse musical heritage in order to manifest with clearer intention as a singer/composer moving forward; to untangle the given strands of musical/cultural influence and weave them more purposefully together.
An exploration of the elusive space between stylistic borders utilizing my own voice, jazz and classical instrumentalists, two choral ensembles of varying style, historically-based poetry and original texts, improvisation, and original compositions.
The Gift of Listening: Improvisation, Space, and Relational Practice of Sound
(2025)
author(s): Wei Ting Tseng
Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : NMH Student Portal
In a world saturated with sonic and social noise, this project positions listening as a deliberate, ethical, and relational practice. Through a series of interdisciplinary performances and compositions, I investigate how improvisation and spatial acoustics can cultivate human connection, challenge perceptual norms, and activate space as a responsive collaborator. Drawing on theories from acoustic ecology, performance studies, and architecture, particularly the work of Beatriz Colomina, Paulina Oliveros, Blesser and Salter, I explore how environments shape musical communication and identity. Improvisation functions not only as a musical technique, but also as a method of social engagement and shared authorship. This research embraces openness, embodiment, and collective presence as central to how music is created, perceived, and lived.
Tracing the Madness
(2025)
author(s): Victoria Oftestad
published in: KC Research Portal
As a tourist in London during the late 17th century, it was mandatory to visit the House of Bedlam, the biggest mental institution in the city. The patients, being considered completely unreasonable, were attributed animalic characteristics, which was reflected in the brutal treatment behind the bars. The ultimate mirroring of the culture of exposing madness could be found in the theatre. Composers for the theatre, in wanting to explore the inability of reason in humanity, wrote The Mad Songs, where the madness is reflected in quick shifts in emotions. These songs have been my tool to gain access to a broader palette of expression in singing. I have developed a handbook of historically informed techniques and documented my process of embodying them, using sources such as Le Brun's "Conférence (...)" (1698); Walter Charleton's "Natural History of the Passions" (1701); Aaron Hill's "The Art of Acting" (1753); and George Vandenhoff's "The Art of Elocution" (1846). My quest for madness has also become a quest for genuinity. When Charles Le Brun conveyed his theory of expression on canvas, he strongly distinguished the difference between painting tense muscles and painting genuine expression. This has become a guideline for my research: in order to gain genuinity, one has to channel a reaction and produce an impulse. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap between now and then, allowing for a deeper understanding of the Mad Songs, as well as encouraging others to dive into theatrical repertoire on its own premises.
How to stage sexual violence from a post victim perspective?
(2025)
author(s): Tuulia Soininen
published in: Research Catalogue
This exegesis discusses staging sexual violence from the post victim perspective within the context of contemporary dance and artistic research. It addresses the topic with feministic and autoethnographic approaches as a means to expand narrow victim narratives and proposes more complex and nuanced artistic language. This research highlights the need for ethical frameworks in dance and calls for new methodologies to support such work.
Fontys & Codarts, Master Choreography COMMA, Master Arts, Cohort 4: 2023-2025
