Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• 3. Internal publication Research published in this issue are only for internal circulation within the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague.
• 2. Royal Conservatoire Investigations Royal Conservatoire Investigations
• 1. Master Research Projects All research in KC

• 
  Arranging works of J. S. Bach for guitar (2015) author(s): Hrvoje Hleb, Enno Voorhorst Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
  Name: Hrvoje Hleb Main subject: Classical guitar Research coach: Enno Voorhorst Research question: What changes must/can one make when arranging J. S. Bach´s works for guitar? Summary of results: Even though J. S. Bach never composed or arranged anything for guitar, through his own arrangements for other instruments, he left us some sort of study example of what changes we can make when arranging his music for guitar. In his arrangements, Bach did not hesitate to change the original key if it was needed to make a composition playable or more suitable for the chosen instrument. If he was arranging for an instrument able to play more voices, he would often compose new voices, and similarly, the other way around. In the vast majority of cases he would have kept the original rhythm, harmony and melody, but if there was a just cause, he would have changed even that. By following his example, we can do the same when making an arrangement for guitar, but it is important to find the balance between staying close to the original and making it sound natural on the guitar. To capture both of those, would be ideal, but on the guitar we are often forced to make compromises. What to sacrifice and where the line of balance is, is personal, but some things must be respected. One must keep the core idea and character of the movement, to stay in style and to make it suitable and natural sounding for the guitar. In my presentation I will show some examples of what I did in my arrangement of Bach´s second Sonata for violin solo BWV 1003 with explanations as to why I made certain changes and also I will play some recordings of creative solutions of other arrangments. Biography: I was born in January 28th 1989 in Vinkovci, Croatia. I started playing guitar at age of 8, and attended music school in Vinkovci. Aged 18 I enrolled at the Music academy in Zagreb, from which I graduated five years later with the class of Darko Petrinjak. During my studies I participated in masterclasses with Ana Vidović, Zoran Dukić, Aniello Desiderio and Carlo Marchione.
  open exposition comments (0)
• Pulse and Rhythm (2015) author(s): Marije de Jong Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
  Marije de Jong Cello Research coach, Gerard Bouwhuis Pulse and Rhythm, a report in search for puls. Rhythm is the basis of music, as it makes it accessible for the audience. In my experience, musicians can be divided into two groups; those who are initially oriented towards rhythm and those who are initially directed towards melody. I feel I’m more of the second kind, and in order to get a better feeling for pulse and rhythm I decided to write a report on a search for pulse. For this report I wrote rhythmic etudes and exercises for cello, in order to strengthen the inner pulse. Biography: Marije de Jong was born in 1988 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. At the age of twelve she started playing the cello. In 2007 Marije started her Bachelor studies cello at the Fontys conservatore Tilburg with Paul Uyterlinde. After an Erasmus to the Robert Schumann-Hochschule in Dusseldorf with Gregor Horsch, she graduated from her bachelor in 2012. In 2013 she was accepted to the masters of the Royal conservatoire The Hague with Larissa Groeneveld and Roger Regter, and to the orchestra master of the Residentie orchestra. During her studies she always preferred orchestra playing and participated in a lot of orchestras o.a. the National Youth Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchestra, Filharmonie Zuid-Nederland and the Residentie orchestra. This June she is hoping to graduate from her masters cello.
  open exposition comments (0)
• Natural horn and valve horn in the 19th century. The period of transition between both instruments. (2015) author(s): Mateusz Cendlak Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
  Name: Mateusz Cendlak Main subject: Natural horn Research coach: Herman Jeurissen Title of research: Natural horn and valve horn in the 19th century. The period of transition between both instruments. Research question: How long did it take the valve horn to completely replace its predecessor and why did they coexist for such a long period of time? Summary of Results: It is crucial for professional horn players (playing both natural and modern horn) to study the origins of their instrument. Just few decades after horn became a standard instrument of the orchestra horn players and makers started to search for ways to explore it more and broaden its capabilities. The main disadvantage of early horn was its limited range. Before the valve horn became the main instrument in this family a lot of experiments took place. The most important technique which arose from these experiments was since the middle of the 18th century the hand stopping technique. This way of playing had crucial influence on the attitude to the horn and made this instrument so distinctive. The evolution of hand stopping technique came to the point when natural horn was considered as a fully chromatic instrument. As a result, a lot of horn players did not get convinced about the invention of valve around 1815 and did not want to accept the new type of instrument which had only open sounds. The sense of esthetic of a great part of horn players and composers was the main reason why the natural instrument remained for them the real horn. The most conservative center of natural horn playing was Paris. It was where the most important treatises of horn were written. The class of natural horn of Paris Conservatory was closed down only in 1906. But not only French musicians remained faithful to the natural horn. Johannes Brahms never really accepted the new invention of valved horn and wrote all his pieces theoretically for natural instruments. The double horn we know from modern orchestras has been existing only since the first half of 20th century. Nowadays the natural horn is experiencing its renaissance and has been used by some contemporary composers such as Benjamin Britten or György Ligeti. Biography: I was born in Poznań (Poland) on 13th October 1987. I began my musical education at age of 13 in Music High-school in my hometown. After 7 years I decided to devote myself to music and began modern horn studies at Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań with dr. Krzysztof Stencel. After two years when my school opened the natural horn subject I became the first student of this instrument in Poland. My experience with natural horn in Poland was not satisfying and after graduating I decided to continue my education at school with richer tradition.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Plunge into Performance Anxiety (2015) author(s): Ginette Puylaert Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
  Name: Ginette Puylaert; Research Coaches: Esther van Fenema, Susan Williams; Main Subject: Classical singing; Circle Leader: Gerda van Zelm; Title of Research: Plunge into Performance Anxiety Research Question: How can a personal ‘mind flow’ be translated to an assignment on stage? and to what extent do my nerves relate to the connection I have with the audience and my ensemble? Summary of Results: Soprano Ginette Puylaert began her research together with an ensemble to make interventions on stage as a way to cope with performance anxiety (PA). Interventions are physical or theatrical coping strategies, which can be used on stage to decrease PA. Ginette tried to create a confidential environment where there could be freely spoken about PA-related issues and to experiment with these. Through questionnaires and meetings they shared their information. The ensemble was supposed to consist solely of musicians with PA, but due to circumstances the ensemble became a mixed group of musicians with and without PA. It never came to the process of developing interventions on stage. The musicians without PA often treated the questions and meetings in a humoristic way, which decreased the sense of a confidential environment. Also, in general the ensemble lacked of cooperation, the meetings took place during rehearsals. This project could only work if all musicians joined voluntarily and worked with full commitment. Stage one ended with a concert where Ginette individually experimented with the term ‘vulnerability’ using interaction with the audience and ensemble. The recital was received as an artistic and personal performance. In the next stage Ginette using coping strategies within different ensembles and analyzed thirteen concerts using pre- and after concert questionnaires. Her hypothesis was that her nerves would decrease when her connection with the audience and ensemble was stronger, but the results indicated the opposite concerning connection with the audience. The connection with the ensemble did decrease her nerves, but not significantly. Next to that she became more objective towards her nerves as she was analyzing them, noticing that they didn’t vary much throughout her concerts. One concert was considered an outlier, as her level of nervousness was extremely low. She had to support a sick colleague, which might have forced her into the role of a rescuer, with a positive effect on her nervousness. This research helped to develop the original format for the PA ensemble project. Future plans are to realize this project. Biography: Soprano Ginette Puylaert studied with Lenie van den Heuvel during her Bachelor of Music at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and graduated in 2013. She continued her master in The Hague with the same teacher. In the summer of 2014 Ginette participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy where she performed with young international musicians ‘Coro’ by L. Berio conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. In 2013 Ginette joined the Britten-Pears Young Artiste Programme where she sang the role of 2nd Woman in Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas. She also sang in master classes by Jard van Nes and Meinard Kraak.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Modern vertical thinking (Triad pairs over seventh chords) (2015) author(s): David Reschofsky published in: KC Research Portal
  Modern jazz uses triad chords a lot. I would like to know all possible triad substitutions over seventh chords, so I will also examine this in my thesis. What I hear and what I transcribed from modern jazz musicians is that they know the main music systems and the possibilities very well. I will listen to and transcribe solos from my favourite artists and find out what kind of scales and triad combinations they use. I will then examine these systems to discover what kind of triad chords there are and how we can use them in an irregular way. So my main question is, how can I use the concept of triad pairs to express the sound that is in my head?
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  The classical music concert experience (2015) author(s): Vincent van Wijk Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
  Name: Vincent van Wijk Main Subject: Classical Oboe Research Coaches: Gerard Bouwhuis, Renee Jonker Title of Research: The classical music concert experience Research Question: What are the differences between the classical and pop performance practice of today and which aspects of pop music can we incorporate into the classical music concert performance practice? Summary of Results: It is a fact that classical concert venues are having a hard time filling their halls. In the past decades, there has been an increasing criticism of the way classical music performances are currently given. The image of classical music has resulted in audiences finding it ‘dull’ and the classical concert experience perceived as ‘too stiff’. Has it always been like this? In this research you will discover an answer as to why and how the classical music concert experience has changed, why the range of people who have access to (classical) music increased during the past few centuries and how we ended up having multiple genres in the 20th century; including the ‘rise’ of pop music. We will take a look at why this genre is becoming so popular and we will start to analyze the differences between pop and classical music concerts. I created a questionnaire, which was filled in by 58 performing musicians, both classical and pop. After analyzing the answers, I had a clear overview of which aspects are typical pop music-esque and which are typical classical music elements. Subsequently, I developed three different formats of classical music concerts, I went to the shopping mall and played the same oboe solo piece in three different formats: traditional classical concert, semi-traditional classical concert and a more interactive concert. Throughout this experiment I recorded the number of audience members for each separate type of concert, the results of which added another element of interest. The presentation will include background information, the interesting results of both the questionnaire and the shopping mall experiment (including movies) and a conclusion regarding my point on view on this topic, which shall be shown via a PowerPoint presentation. Biography: Vincent van Wijk (1990) completed his Bachelor studies with Ali Groen and Alexei Ogrintchouk cum laude in 2013. Now he is studying in the second year of the Master at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague with Karel Schoofs and Alexei Ogrintchouk. He followed numerous masterclasses with Maurice Bourgue, Stefan Schilli, Hansjorg Schellenberger, Bart Schneemann and private lessons with Frank de Bruine, Remco de Vries, Lucas Macias Navarro, Dominik Wollenweber in Berlin. Vincent often plays in professional orchestras and ensembles such as the Rotterdam Philharmonisch Orkest, Nederlands Kamer Orkest, Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, Brussels Philharmonic (principal oboe) and the Residentie Bach Orkest. Besides oboist, Vincent is a frequently asked orchestra manager. He organises around 8 projects a year, throughout the Netherlands.
  open exposition comments (0)