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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Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the influenced musician [final]
(2024)
author(s): Alba Conejo Mangas
published in: KC Research Portal
Name: Alba Conejo Mangas.
Main subject: Historical violin.
Research supervisor: Wouter Verschuren.
Title of the research: Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the "influenced" musician.
Research question: Is it possible to distinguish the influence of pre-flamenco in the villancicos of Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga?
Summary of results: During my research, I never imagined finding music from Lima or Guatemala composed by Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, a musician from Córdoba, Spain, in the XVIII century, who had never been in these places. This discovery presented an interesting challenge: to bring back to life scores that had been forgotten for over two hundred years and to explore the music played in Córdoba Cathedral during the middle of the XVIII century.
My interest on Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga started when I listened to a beautiful villancico "Voy buscando mi cordero" by Gaitán y Arteaga, performed by La Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla with Enrico Onofri. Despite being sacred music composed for the church and for weekly mass, it was written in Spanish and carried a distinct Spanish folkloric flavour. Did Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga have a connection with XVIII century Spanish folk music? This caught my attention and spurred me to delve deeper into his music, particularly his villancicos. I soon realized how little-known Juan Manuel's music is today
The line of research I pursued falls within the realm of musicological-historical research. The musicological techniques employed include those related to musical historiography, such as the chronological organization of historical-musical events, particularly in Córdoba. Additionally, it involves an understanding of musical compositions, forms, and styles, as well as musical aesthetics, encompassing the conception of music, its functions, and purposes.
The objectives are: to understand the musical personality of Gaitán y Arteaga in his villancicos and the relation between the folkloric and ecclesiastical world in Spain on XVIII C.
Biography: Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, she finished her modern bachelor under the guidance of Gordan Nikolic in Rotterdam. It was then, that she started her interest in historical performance. After her graduation, she studied for her baroque bachelor's in Brussels under the guidance of Ryo Terakado, and in 2022 she started her master's degree at The Hague Conservatory with professor Ryo Terakado too.
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Possible Connection between the Development of Executive Functions and Music Education According to the Kodály Concept
(2024)
author(s): Orsolya Toldi
published in: KC Research Portal
This research will focus on comparing tasks that are used to measure the development of executive functions (EFs) and musicianship exercises according to the Kodály concept in order to find analogies and functional intersections between them. EFs are essential for our mental and physical health, for school and job success. Since these skills can be improved and early EFs training might help reduce social disparities in academic achievement and health, pinpointing activities that could develop EFs has become an important research topic in psychology, neuroscience, and education in recent years.
The main direction of this research will be a close examination of the tasks used for measuring the three core components of EFs - inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory alongside musicianship exercises taken from Kodály methodological books and lesson observations that work in a similar way.
This study has found similarities between EF tasks and Kodály musicianship exercises in all the three core components of EFs. These findings could indicate that with Kodály’s music education approach we are not only practising musicianship exercises but we might challenge our EF skills as well. This research, therefore, could be a first step that leads to a more complex investigation into the potential positive impact of music education according to the Kodály Concept on EFs.
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Listening to / in Public Space
(2024)
author(s): Justin Bennett
published in: KC Research Portal
As an artist working often with audio walks I often have the nagging thought: does using headphones to present sound in public space immerse the listener in a bubble, separating them from their surroundings?
This research looks at the form of the audio walk and the possibilities of using binaural recording, narrative devices and locative media to prioritise engagement with the environment.
In addition it documents the re-activation of an older work of mine in a app using geo-location and it collects documentation of a number of walk-pieces including scripts, audio files, maps and other background information.
Lectorate Music, Education and Society, Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag. 2023-24
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Navigating in Overlaps: Redefining Performance Space as Multi-Space
(2024)
author(s): Stijn Brinkman
published in: KC Research Portal
In this study it is advocated to perceive performance space as overlapping multiple spatial layers, all existing in the same moment, but all with different boundaries. A triangle of performer, audience and surroundings creates performance space together as co-players by activating spatial layers and redrawing spatial boundaries. A new term is coined to better understand the unstable, moving nature of performance space: multi-space. To deal with the concept of multi-space in actual performances, the use of the verbs ‘navigate’ and ‘zoom in/out’ are advocated.
Embedded in this study is an exposition of the artistic projects of Stijn Brinkman, in which the concept of multi-space is tested as new tool to create performances with more exploration, agency, imagination, and movement. By finding a way for performers to disappear and to be present at the same time, the domination of walls and the domination of a performer's body (both apparent in many traditional performances) are challenged. The concepts of multi-space, navigate and zoom in/out stimulate audiences to engage more with their surroundings, while helping performers to shape their ideas always through site-specific processes.
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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.