KC Research Portal
About this portal
Master students at the Royal Conservatoire use the online Research Catalogue for the communication with their supervisor, for the development and formulation of their research proposal, for their work-in-progress, and for the final documentation and publication of their research.
contact person(s):
Kathryn Cok ,
Koncon Master Coordinator ,
Casper Schipper url:
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/517228/1588065
Recent Issues
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3. Internal publication
Research published in this issue are only for internal circulation within the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague.
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2. Royal Conservatoire Investigations
Royal Conservatoire Investigations
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1. Master Research Projects
All research in KC
Recent Activities
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"Encumbered with useless graces": Ornamentation and Aesthetics in Eighteenth-century Scottish Music
(2024)
author(s): Jonty Coy
published in: KC Research Portal
Throughout the eighteenth century, a steady stream of Italian musicians travelled to Scotland, in search of artistic and commercial success. Inspired by the enterprise of their Scottish counterparts, many published collections of “Scots Tunes,” such that by the end of the century a rich body of repertoire had emerged. Italians and Scots alike valued this repertoire for various reasons: for some, these tunes represented an idealised vision of pastoral simplicity; for others, a fossilised record of the music of past generations; for others still, these tunes were a vehicle for the expression of nationalistic sentiment.
This repertoire presents a challenge to Early Music practitioners today, who must contend with the fact that this music has been transmitted through textual sources and oral tradition. To this end, many musicians engage with elements of Scottish Traditional performance practice – a practice that often diverges from, and is at times incompatible with, dominant understandings of eighteenth-century performance practice.
In this thesis, I summarise some of the ornamentation techniques employed by Scottish Traditional musicians, investigating their possible influence on Italian Scots Tunes sources. I contend that comparative analysis of these sources can inform performances of this repertoire, by revealing implicit relationships between notation, performance practice and aesthetic judgements. Further, I survey current trends in the historical performance practice of Scots Tunes, interrogating the ways in which this repertoire is framed by modern conceptions of “folk” music. I observe that this repertoire continues to be valued within a variety of aesthetic frameworks, which are themselves revealed, upheld, and reproduced through performance practice.
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New (old) Music - Intercontextual Compositional Methodologies
(2023)
author(s): Martín Mayo
published in: KC Research Portal
It would be more than reductive to say that art is not created in a vacuum. Simply said, all art exists in a context, and said context includes medium, genre, style, and idiom, amongst other things. In the realm of Western music, much insight has been given regarding quotation, and less so regarding subtler applications of stylistic, generic, and idiomatic thought in composition. So, if all music exists in a specific context, how can composers creatively account for context in their compositions? This research seeks to answer this question by outlining methodologies via analysis of relevant works. Given the background and musical focus of the researcher, this research predominantly focuses on musical works that adapt or interact with Latin-American folkloric music and traditions, with many works dealing specifically with Venezuelan and Cuban folklore.
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(2019) The Singing Violin: Portamento use in Franz Schubert’s violin music
(2023)
author(s): Emma WIlliams
published in: KC Research Portal
(this research was submitted March 2019)
How can late-18th- and early-19th-century vocal techniques influence our way of experimenting with portamento use in Schubert’s violin music and how can we reinstate the practice in ways that are relevant for current listeners and players?
The voice and violin have always shared an intimate connection. Violin treatises from the late-18th and early-19th centuries consistently encourage violinists to imitate vocal techniques. My thesis explores this relationship via the music of Franz Schubert (1797-1828), who revolutionised Lieder and used vocal techniques in his instrumental writing. Many fundamental vocal expressive devices, including portamento, have been lost in “modern” and “historically-informed” (HIP) singing and violin playing. My thesis aims to (1) understand the historical appropriateness of portamento in Schubert’s violin music and how different types of portamento work, (2) examine why the technique was lost, and (3) explore ways of reigniting it in today's musical aesthetic. I first analysed relevant written sources and early vocal and violin recordings, finding clear evidence of frequent and varied vocal and violin portamento use, clear links in portamento use between early-recorded singing and violin playing, and consistency between early-recorded portamenti and written sources from Schubert’s time. To understand why portamento was lost, I examined the wider phenomenon of style change in the 20th century and found that both recording technology and general 20th-century aesthetic changes encouraged “cleanness” and “repeatability” in music, thereby eradicating spontaneous and unique expressive devices like portamento. Finally, I researched innate emotional responses to music and portamento’s importance as an engaging communicative tool, and undertook my own artistic experimentation in early-19th-century music, collaborating with and surveying leading vocal and string 19th-century HIP practitioners to explore ways of making portamento expressive and relevant to modern musical practice and appreciation.
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'What may have happened…'
(2023)
author(s): Johan van Kreij
published in: Research Catalogue, KC Research Portal
“What may have happened…" is a research driven by the desire to augment the sense of sharing in a decentralized improvisation-a creative musical situation in which the participants are in different locations. It focusses on extending the amount of communication channels in a decentralized improvisation setting—beyond the audible and visible. The aim will be not just adding extra layers of data exchange, but introducing various modes of interaction. This will be realized through the use of software and mobile devices.
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Embodied Bits
(2023)
author(s): Pedro Latas
published in: KC Research Portal
The Master research “Embodied Bits” concerns how trans-human, post-digital and post-internet ideas relate to my Queer experience. It is, in a nutshell, an ongoing research on how the technological world has spilled over into the biological world and how Queer folks are front and centre when it comes to taking advantage of technological developments in order to realise their identities.
The research question is “How do we perform ourselves in the digital realm?”. Though it started as a research on the practicalities and aesthetics of internet/networked-based performances it quickly opened a Pandora’s Box of social inquiry and analysis. Performing ourselves means performing ethnicity, gender, sexuality, cultural identity... There is an inevitability in drawing a direct connection between these topics and how do we, as singular and, paradoxically, plural human beings within ourselves engage with modern day technology. Through technology we are able to build ourselves, to draft new identities, to build again if they no longer suit our needs.
As an artistic research, “Embodied Bits” looks into how digital media has influenced human experience and focuses on the experiences of non-normative bodies and identities, in which I include my own. These topics are interlaced with my own compositional and performative work, always informed and inspired by the previously mentioned ideas and historical context.
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Younger audience for Classical Music
(2023)
author(s): Manuel Urios Hernández
Limited publication. Only visible to members of the portal : KC Research Portal
In recent years, the audience for classical music has been aging. Fewer and fewer young people are attending concerts. This is not a problem of classical music itself, but of the factors surrounding it, such as codes of behavior or the usual concert rituals. The aim of this research is to look for different ways of innovating classical music concerts, so that classical music becomes a style of music that is better known and more present among young people.