Research Day Musical Language
March 12th, 2019 | 09.30 - 13.00 | Small Concert Hall (070)
“It is in the nature of things - and it is this which determines the uninterrupted march of evolution in art quite as much as in other branches of human activity - that epochs which immediately precede us are temporarily farther away from us than others which are more remote in time.” (I. Stravinsky, An Autobiography, 1936). This quote on the perception of musical language reveals a fascinating paradigm: the older something is, the more it can be tested, and the more something is tested, the more (an opinion on) it can be validated. It is in this field of action that the Research Group Musical Language operates, constantly pushing the boundaries of compositional idioms, testing and validating the old and the new in order to elevate the art of music creation. In this regard, it is not surprising that the presented lectures cover a large array of topics, spanning from romanticism to micro-tonality, from spectral techniques in Jazz to multi-medial avant-garde. Though often interdisciplinary in approach - correlating with subjects such as music philosophy, psychology, musicology and music technology - each project maintains it’s artistic individuality. It is in this way that we aim to facilitate the uninterrupted march of evolution in musical language and help it venture into epochs which lie in the future.
09.30 Christian Klinkenberg
Engaging audience: New Technologies and Interactivity in a Concert Situation
In "The Leaves That Hung But Never Grew" the musicians are not the only performers. Furthermore, the concert visitor is not just a listener. Even more: the concert visitors are involved in the performance. The smartphones or tablets of the listeners, as soon as they connect with the Wifi network in the same room, are quickly converted to "instruments". This is made possible by a web app on the smartphone. In this way, the spectators are able to interact proactively with the orchestra by reading projected symbols.
10.00 Philippe Lamouris
Behind the Notes Lies the Infinite
During this presentation I’ll be discussing the responsibility of the composer and its implications, furthermore my personal struggle in deciding what to write, which “notes” to choose. As a researcher and as a musician in general the more deeply you get into a process the narrower the horizon becomes. Finding the perfect balance between acquiring knowledge, creating music and having the proper perspective is hard and creates problems. In order to find solutions to these problems I’ll dissect the thoughts of Rubinstein, Tarkovsky, Muti and others, and show how and why I’ve composed my last work for piano solo. This piece may later grow into something bigger, for example a piano concerto.
10.30 Boudewijn Cox
Josef Rut and his personal system of twelve-tone tonality
Josef Rut (1926-2008), Czech violin player and composer, was strongly interested in the theoretical aspect of composition in the 20th century. He invented a personal theory connecting musical time with space and movement. The result is a musical space/time structure that varied according to the quality of the movement. With this theory, Rut tried to give an answer concerning the problems in contemporary harmony. Since 1964, Rut worked with a twelve-tone row constructed with two different diatonic keys in order to get a new purified diatonic order. In this manner he composed over 40 works.
11.00 — break —
