Research Catalogue

Proposal peer-reviewed and accepted as ”Themed Session”, 18th Biennial conference on Baroque Music, Cremona 10-15 July 2018 In the light of the conference main theme ’Crossing borders’ the aim of this round table / themed session is to develop an experimental discourse departing from a musical source from the period 1550-1750, as part of a performative ritual for crossing borders and strict dichotomies. The objective is to search from new chiasmatic crossings between a musician’s gaze, a musical source from the Baroque era and musicological findings. Following the discourse of letting go of the perceived strict dichotomy between musical text and music performance (Schulze 2015:3) this session proposes a radical move towards a borderless entangled reading of musical sources based on performative methodologies. This approach may allow for new relations to develop between traditional distinctions pronounced through musicological findings and artistic performance methods; it might also allow for closer collaborations between musicologists and artistic researchers in music. Artistic research in music is a fast growing experimental academic field, with a strong link to musicology. Highly significant to this new field is the desire to find ways of merging sensuous (subjective) knowledge with a variety of other research methodologies. The artistic research purpose is often to follow the performing process of understanding a musical score and the active performance practice calling for praxical strategies such as ritual thinking, musicking through texts and theories (ex. hermeneutics, feminist new materalism), reflective/diffractive methodologies, meaning-making through translation studies, essayistic writing, and speculative performance philosophy. For this session four short (5 min.) presentation will be performed with one common point of departure: ‘musical source a part of a performative ritual for crossing borders and strict dichotomies’. With reference to these four presentations the stage will open up for an intra-active and explorative dialogue between all participant in the session.

The aim of this artistic research symposium is to allow for VOICE to act as a guide into the UKNOWN. Through an entangled mish-mash of intra-active events (performances, installations, workshop and seminars) participants will be invited to explore the potential power of VOICE and its impact on the UNKNOWN or ’that-which-is-yet-to-be-known’. In 17th century Venetian academic circles VOICE was considered to be a symbol of NOTHINGNESS (Calcagno 2003). VOICE was also the primary tool in the creation of the opera genre (Belgrano 2011). Questions driving the event include: how can we understand VOICE in contemporary every day performances, based on both sensuous and intellectual knowledge? What specific vocal features will emerge if we allow VOICE to be the guide into the UNKNOWN aspects of life and living? The symposium will be staged as the first one out of three events, allowing for the project to eventually grow into an international platform for Vocal Performance Philosophy, based at IAC. This first event is a seed highlighting the significance of the theme; the second event will be presented as an intra-active performance-workshop; the final event will be organised as an international symposia. The symposium is curated by Nordic Network for Vocal Performance Research (https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/399282/399283), Nordic Network for Early Opera (http://www.earlyopera.org), and Network for Performance Philosophy (https://performancephilosophy.ning.com/about).

GLORIES TO NOTHINGNESS SORROW. MADNESS. NOTHING. A voice. A gesture. A beginning. An experiment. A sketch. A becoming. ... based on the story of a singer’s performance of paradoxes and passions in 17th century Venice. ... based on a singer’s research – performed in the 21st century – about the Art of Performing Everything and Nothing. GLORIES TO NOTHINGNESS is an artistic research project investigating performative acts of moving between Vocalizing ≈ Articulating ≈ Mattering ≈ Trusting. The research question: How to perform trust? Every movement, utterance, projection and articulation is consciously exploring and honoring Nothingness as an idea and a concept much debated at the time when the first public opera productions were performed in Venice around 1640. Based on a performative research approach and new materialist theories, performance acts are methodologically diffracted through musical fragments composed by Luigi Rossi (c. 1597 – 1653), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and Francesco Sacrati (1605-1650); through selected poems from the volume Le Glorie della signora Anna Renzi romana (Venice, 1641); through thoughts entangled with figures such as RESISTANCE, VULNERABILITY and TRUST; through the practice of exploring force and form as every day performative acts. Elisabeth Belgrano vocal projections / performance Björn Ross visual projections / scenography

A Music Research Seminar honouring Accademia degli Incogniti and Claudio Monteverdi Palazzo Grimani, Venice 15 June 2017 Nordic Network for Early Opera and Nordic Network for Vocal Performance Research, in collaboration with Scuola di Music Antica Venezia, are delighted to invite you for a performance seminar in Venice 15 June around the theme of vocality, music drama and the vibrant intellectual / artistic scene in Venice around Monteverdi and Accademia degli Incogniti. The idea comes from a desire to offer a fringe-event / sub-encounter / prologue for (among others) participants of the two symposia co-happening in Venice 16-17 June: The Foundazione Cini conference on Monteverdi (16-17 June) and the symposia "Encounters, Discussions, Experimentations: Art, Research and Artistic Research in Music”, the Research Pavilion of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Venice Biennale 2017 (16-17 June) We are also hoping to meet anyone interested to explore the fairly new academic field of Artistic Research. Time: 15 June 2017 15:00-18:30 Venue: Palazzo Grimani, Ruga Giuffa off Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venezia,

This exposition is a collaborative translation study of two 17th century historical sources. The aim is to search for possible ways of translating acts, words, and musical meaning from the past into new acts, words, meaning and musical performances. The following questions will be addressed: What can we learn today about a performance from 17th century? What was the sound of a voice in the 17th century like? What was the relationship between a performer and her/his audience in the 17th century? To what extent did musical sources influence a musical performance in the 17th century? How can 17th century vocality be translated and performed in a contemporary performance (research) context? The historical sources used in this study are 1) "Le Glorie della Signora Anna Renzi romana", a collection of poetry composed in honor of one of the most successful singers in Venice around 1640, Anna Renzi romana; 2) a collection of some of the most popular Roman cantatas around 1640.