No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine

Sean Bell

Sean Bell Student number: 3230643 Master Early Music Voice Research supervisor: Dr. Inês de Avena Braga Title: No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine Research question: How can I create a stage performance combining and connecting my two sound worlds/style identities as a performer? Summary of the results of the research: In this research I have explored the creative development of a stage performance, combining operatic music by Handel with contemporary performance art. Through this I have explored how I can combine my duality as a performer: the early music singer and the contemporary performer and creator. This project and its connected research are a part of my artistic development as a musician, creator and performer, and the urge to explore this music and questions grew out of previous projects and ideas. I have created and developed my project through following a consequential progression of artistic choices, and through this space that has unfolded I have come to find an essential identity of myself as a performer and creator. By being honest towards myself through the critical reflection, I have been able to investigate my process, my preferences, inspirations and my distinct personal style. Through this I have been able to strengthen my artistic identity and the artistic tools I use, bringing forth a more complete performer. Short biography: Sean Bell is a countertenor and performance artist from Oslo. His studies centre mainly on chamber and sacred music and opera, yet also includes a focus on new ideas and methods of interpreting classical and contemporary repertoire. Through sonic imaginations and arrangements, he explores this repertoire in new ways. This has led him to a series of collaborations and solo performances on the border line between classical music and performance art. Bell also works with contemporary music and has premiered several pieces for countertenor. He is an active improviser, plays baroque guitar and engages in instrument building and music electronics.

Bibliography

Nicholas Cook “Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance” Society of Music Theory, Volume 7/Number 2. (2001).

Winton Dean: Handel’s dramatic oratorios and masques (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Winton Dean: Handel’s operas 1726-1741 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp: Handel’s operas 1704-1726 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Heiner Goebbels “Aesthetics of Absence: Questioning Basic Assumptions in Performing Arts” (Cornell Lecture on Contemporary Aesthetics, Cornell University, March 9^th 2010).

RoseLee Goldberg: Performance art from futurism to the present (London: Thames and Hudson, World of Art series, 1988, originally published in large format as Performance: Live art 1909 to the present, 1979).

Andrew V. Jones “Staging a Handel opera” Early Music, vol. 34 (2006), pp. 277-287.

Sarah McCleave: Dance in Handel’s London Operas (668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY USA: University of Rochester Press, 2013).

Marita P McClymonds and Daniel Heartz. "Opera seria." Grove Music Online. 2001. (Accessed 9 Nov. 2021) https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000020385

Meredith Monk, Biography (Meredith Monk/The House Foundation for the Arts). Accessed 6 February 2022. https://www.meredithmonk.org/about/biography/

Anne MacNeil, "Commedia dell’arte." Grove Music Online, 2001; Accessed 4 Feb. 2022. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000006188

Nina Penner: Storytelling in Opera and Musical Theatre (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2020).

Jack Westrup "Da capo." Grove Music Online. 2001; (Accessed 10 Nov. 2021) https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000007043

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Sean Bell - No Joy in the Brilliance of Sunshine - 2022

Bibliography