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

• From the forest to the concert hall (2020) author(s): Anna Lachegyi published in: KC Research Portal
  My aim for this research is to discover more about the equipment I use every day and to see if having a practical and technical knowledge about the viola da gamba bow and bow making in the 16-18th century in general will affect my playing and artistic decisions. In today’s practice, bows with a screw mechanism and white hair are the most common type used by viola da gamba players. Iconography and treatises show us that the screw system was not in use until the middle of the 18th century, and the choice of the type of wood, hair, or the shape and length of the bow is very diverse. As the main part of my research, I have spent a lot of time in a workshop, learning the process of bow making, with the result of three bows. This experiment helped me to explore which parts of the bow affect our playing the most, how the frog system or the tension relate to the articulation, and the quality of wood to the quality of the sound. Bow makers are artists who through their wood-working help the musicians to express their music. In my presentation, after an overview of how the bow changed during the 16-18th century, I will describe my experience in the workshop with pictures and videos and finish with a demonstration of the bows I made.
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• Singing and Well-being - The Experiences of Professional Choir Singers (2020) author(s): Laura Ginström published in: KC Research Portal
  Name: Laura Ginström Main subject: Ensemble Singing Supervisor: Gerda van Zelm Title of research: Singing and Well-being - The Experiences of Professional Choir Singers Research question: How do professional choir singers describe the effects of singing and the professional life on their well-being, and what is the importance and effect of singing-related well-being for my own artistic development? Summary of results: Singing in choirs has been an integral part of my life, and I have personally experienced enjoyable physical sensations, positive emotions and social bonding associated with choir singing. Researching this topic further, I learned that these experiences can be described as singing-related well-being. According to a growing number of studies amateur choir singing produces various beneficial effects on health and well-being. Research on professional singers about their experiences and occupational well-being has been much scarcer. Based on the limited studies, they might not enjoy all of the same benefits of singing as amateurs do. The goal of this research was to start closing this research gap and to learn what professional choir singers have to say about singing-related well-being. I created an online questionnaire to gather experiences from professional singers, and also kept a diary of my own well-being experiences during professional choir projects. Analysing these two sources of data revealed that professional singers did recognise many of the well-being experiences associated with singing. However, professional choir singing was not perceived as something especially relaxing or therapeutic, which are common themes emerged from research on amateurs. The social aspects of choir work were deemed important in experiencing singing-related well-being, as well as the conductor’s artistic approach. For me personally, these well-being experiences have been the motivation for my career choice and for this research, and they also serve as an indicator of my development as a musician. The format of this research is a thesis. Biography: Laura Ginström (1992) is a Finnish mezzo-soprano who has studied vocal pedagogy and clinical psychology in Helsinki. Her love for choir singing brought her to The Hague, where she started in the new Master Specialisation Ensemble singing at The Royal Conservatoire in 2018. She currently studies with Noa Frenkel and sings projects with The Netherlands Chamber Choir as a part of the master’s course. She is passionate about combining her two careers in singing and psychology, being particularly interested in the beneficial effects of singing on the body and the mind.
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• On the role of organ music (2020) author(s): Iddo van der Giessen published in: KC Research Portal
  This artistic research project delves into the role of organ music in the Dutch Protestant liturgy. It studies the added value of organ music in church services by looking at one specific manifestation of liturgy in which organ music has a prominent role: organ vespers. An organ vespers is a brief Christian service of prayer with a prominent role for organ music. This research provides historical and practical context to organ vespers by relating it to Jewish, Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions of Evening Prayer, and to how Dietrich Buxtehude entertained local businessmen in his series of Abendmusiken. It discusses relevant literature and the guidelines of the Dutch Protestant Service Book on prayers and music. Three practices of organ vespers in the Netherlands are compared. Two outcomes are presented. First, this research presents the order of service for four organ vespers in the Goede Herderkerk in Rotterdam. Second, it describes the results of a questionnaire held amongst the visitors of those vespers. In total 82 questionnaires were filled in by those attending at least one of the vespers. Based on the results, this study argues that organ music in a liturgical context has the exquisite quality of engaging and interacting with listeners and participants in the liturgy. Furthermore, it illustrates how the age-old role of organ music in liturgy continues to be of great value in both musical as well as religious context.
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  16th-Century Keyboard Tablature as Performance Notation (2020) author(s): Christina Kwon published in: KC Research Portal
  As a harpsichordist and HIP performer, I was so fascinated with 16th-century keyboard tablature notation on my first encounter some years ago. Since then, I have been inspired to explore playing from original notation as part of my HIP training. This research is a big part of this artistic endeavor, addressing 16th-century keyboard tablature notation from Spanish and German sources and finding answers for what it is, why it was invented, why it is not in practice today, and how one may bring it back to practice. At the beginning stages of this exploration, I noticed that keyboard tablature was not really in practice as performance notation in the current HIP dialogue. I wanted to investigate why and, through this thesis, present it as a relevant, stimulating topic. This research presents historical and theoretical analysis of this notation and the results of an extensive systematic experiment-survey I devised and conducted with 32 non-musicians and musicians of all levels. Personally, the contents of this thesis have greatly deepened my understanding of historical performance of keyboard music in the 16th century and enriched my experience as an Early Music performer.
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• Britten Folksongs and Their Traditional Counterparts (2020) author(s): Phoebe Kirrage published in: KC Research Portal
  Phoebe Kirrage Classical Singing Research Supervisor: Anna Scott Britten's Folksong Arrangements and Their Traditional Counterparts Question: How do the Britten Folksong arrangements relate to their traditional counterparts, with an emphasis on text? This research explores the relationship between traditional British folk songs and their Benjamin Britten counterparts. The function of this research is to create a new relationship between the original songs and their values and the impressions brought about by Britten through his edits. Primarily through harmonic arrangements, changes in melody and textual edits made by Britten. Both folk and classical music have been crucial components in my life and have shaped me as a performer. There have been a great number of folk songs and tunes arranged for classical music yet there is very little dialogue between the two styles. I have used a combination of my own fieldwork, interviews, rehearsals, recordings and historical research to create an in depth research into the differences made to the traditional songs by Britten in his arrangements. The final results have come to fruition in the creation of an in depth analysis of the differences between the arrangements and the songs, and a full recording of the sixth book of folk songs with guitar. The outcome is a combination of the two musical styles to create a new sound. A concert will follow in which the new arrangements will be performed in a space and atmosphere inspired by both classical and folk performance spaces. A noticeable difference in my classical performing has also come about through the research into storytelling and freeness in folk performance in combination with classical performance. Phoebe Kirrage is a British soprano, having previously studied Musicology at Royal Holloway University of London, she is now pursuing her masters degree in classical singing under the teaching of Noa Frenkel. Having sung from a very early age, Phoebe has had the privilege of performing in some of the UKs most prestigious performance venues, including The Royal Albert Hall and The Barbican. In the Netherlands Phoebe has had the opportunity to perform in spaces such has the Grote Zaal in TivoliVredenburg. Upcoming performances include Britten's Turn of the Screw and Psalm 42 by Mendelssohn.
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• La pratica degli affetti - The practice of affections (2020) author(s): Elisa De Toffol published in: KC Research Portal
  Research question: How the relationship between seconda prattica (Claudio Monteverdi) and poetica del gesto (Luciano Berio) can be absorbed in a singing study process and which are the practical results/vocal consequences? Abstract: This research wants to investigate through a personal vocal approach the nature of the connection between music and text in Claudio Monteverdi’s and Luciano Berio’s compositions. It started with my personal wish as a singer to be able to express feelings behind words in such a way that the relation between both becomes more clear. I found in the connection between these two composers the perfect ground to build this vocal study path which I documented with recordings. This vocal path has proven to be full of inspiration and stimuli: on one side the open, honest and modern full of love language of Monteverdi, which shapes the harmony according to the meaning of the text (pone l’armonia serva all’orazione). On the other side the inspiring, rich, creative and fascinating writing of Luciano Berio that with his poetics of the gesture seems to reveal in a direct and elegant way a world of infinite possibilities of colorful combinations between musical sounds and words. This research exposition, is divided in four main chapters. The first one is an introduction to Monteverdi and his seconda prattica in which the doctrine of affections is exposed with a special focus at the Lamento d'Arianna along with my research about vocal interpretation. The second chapter describes the musical context in Italy at the beginning of the 20th-century observing how the new composers looked back at the past and in particular at Monteverdi and his contemporaries; in the third chapter Luciano Berio's poetics of gesture will be exposed and it will be observed how some of his composition refer to Monteverdi's seconda prattica. A final chapter will show, with a video recording, my vocal research during the approach to their music.
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