A Future In the Past is a research project engaging with the application of methods from Historically Informed Performance and Media Archeology towards problems found in the practice of Live Electronic music. In doing so the project sought to expose lost discourses in the medium as viewed from the performer’s perspective. Three pieces by composer Udo Kasemets were chosen as case studies. All compositions were originally written and performed prior to the 1990’s boom in digital processing. Each case study explores themes related to Liveness, Audience Interaction, and Hyper Instruments. In developing the historical context for each work several strategies were undertaken. Kasemets’ archives were reviewed at the University of Toronto, performers of the original pieces were interviewed, and investigations into period specific instruments were conducted. Additionally, Kasemets’ own published writings were used to reference his aesthetic ambitions as well as for comparison with his contemporaries. Rehearsals were carried out with The Estonian Electronic Music Ensemble, where the historical data and performer experiences were combined to create an individual interpretation for each composition. These interpretations were then presented to an audience and alongside contemporary issues currently debated in Live Electronics
RAPP Lab was a three-year EU-funded research project supported by the ERASMUS+ programme "Strategic Partnerships". RAPP stands for "Reflection based Artistic Professional Practice". The project took forward through a series of multi-national encounters described as Labs.
RAPP Lab explored how the reflective methodologies of Artistic Research empower musicians to creatively respond to the economic-cultural environment with which they are confronted. The project brought together the Artistic Research expertise of seven partner institutions in six different European states:
Association Européenne des Conservatoires – AEC Bruxelles, Belgium
Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia Rome, Italy
Eesti Muusika- ja Teatriakadeemia Tallinn, Estonia
Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, Cologne, Germany (as Coordinator)
mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Vienna, Austria
Norges musikhøgskole, NMH Oslo, Norway
Orpheus Instituut Ghent, Belgium